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PROCEEDINGS OF THE ONE 
HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE GRANTING OF THE CHARTER 
TO KIMBALL UNION ACADEMY 
















































































































































































































































































































































































PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTENNIAL 
AT KIMBALL UNION ACADEMY 




















FINALE OF THE PAGEANT 












PROCEEDINGS OF THE 

ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

GRANTING OF THE CHARTER 


TO KIMBALL UNION ACADEMY 

MERIDEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
JUNE 21-25, 1913 


EDITED BY HARRY BOYNTON PRESTON, ’01, INSTRUCTOR IN 
ENGLISH AT THE ACADEMY. PRINTED AT THE DARTMOUTH PRESS 
APRIL, 1914 


TKArr-FERREO FRO 

Ouf' i mi. HT OFi iJE 

JUL 2 *914 





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INTRODUCTION 


The celebration of the centennial of the granting of the 
charter to Kimball Union Academy had its inception in plans 
made by the trustees and alumni several years before the sum¬ 
mer of nineteen hundred thirteen. Wherever groups of former 
students came together, either formally, as at the Boston 
Alumni Association meeting, or informally, in groups of two 
or three, the coming centennial was the invariable topic of con¬ 
versation. Many classes began early to plan for reunions at 
Meriden, and in order that the representation might be large, 
began to correspond with each other and with the officers of 
the school. 

At the annual fall meeting of the trustees, in September, 
1911, a committee was appointed to plan informally for the cel¬ 
ebration with especial reference to plans for a pageant. This 
Committee consisted of Charles Alden Tracy ’93, principal of 
the Academy, chairman, Prof. Charles D. Adams, and Arthur 
P. Fairfield ’96. Two committees of the General Alumni Asso¬ 
ciation were also appointed at about the same time. One com¬ 
mittee, which was to represent the alumni in the preparation 
for the centennial, was made up of Prof. George J. Cummings 
’65, Principal Tracy and Rev. Maurice J. Duncklee. The other 
committee was given charge of the collection of the centen¬ 
nial fund for general endowment. Of this committee Rev. Mr. 
Duncklee was chairman, and the other members were Mr. Alvah 
B. Chellis ’61, and Mrs. Tamson L. Monroe ’62. To further the 
work of this endowment fund, the latter committee, in coopera¬ 
tion with the trustees, issued a circular which was sent broad¬ 
cast to the alumni. What was accomplished along this line is set 


6 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


forth later in this book, under the title: The Centennial Gifts. 
(Page 89.) 

Meanwhile, during the early months of 1912, the commit¬ 
tee of trustees was busy with the plans for the celebration. To 
this end, they entered into correspondence with William Chaun- 
cy Langdon, of New York, president of the American Pageant 
Association, relative to the advisability of including a pageant 
among the anniversary exercises. Mr. Langdon had recently 
written and directed successful pageants at Thetford and St. 
Johnsbury, Vermont, both dealing with aspects of the New 
Country Life Movement. He came to Meriden in order to fa¬ 
miliarize himself with the history of the town and school and 
with local conditions. After hearing Mr. Langdon’s report, 
which was unqualifiedly favorable, the decision was made to 
include the pageant and to employ Mr. Langdon in the capacity 
of author and director. From January, 1913, until June, Mr. 
Langdon gave practically all his time to the preparation of this 
event. 

On September 24, 1912, at the annual meeting of the trus¬ 
tees, the centennial committee, intrusted with the power to ar¬ 
range and carry out the plans for the various exercises, was 
elected. Of this, again, Principal Tracy was chairman, Rev. Mr. 
Duncklee, the second, and Harry L. Duncan, Esq., the third 
member. It was voted to hold the exercises of the centennial in 
connection with the ninety-seventh commencement, which was 
scheduled for the week of June 16. This was a fitting time as 
the grant of the Academy’s charter, which the centennial was to 
celebrate, was made on June 16, 1813. Subsequent events dur¬ 
ing the school year, 1912-1913, made a postponement of com¬ 
mencement necessary. The date was, therefore, set for the days 
of June twenty-first to twenty-fifth, inclusive. The earlier days 
of the week, Sunday and Monday, were to be given to the an- 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


7 


nual commencement, while Tuesday and Wednesday were set 
for the class reunions, the formal anniversary exercises, and the 
two performances of the pageant. 

Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., ’69, president of the United 
Society of Christian Endeavor, was invited to deliver the Bac¬ 
calaureate sermon. It was fitting that the principal historical 
address should be delivered by the distinguished son of the 
distinguished former principal, Dr. Richards. Dr. Charles H. 
Richards kindly accepted the invitation to be the orator of the 
day on Tuesday morning. Most of the other speakers for the 
various informal gatherings were recruited from the alumni who 
were present. To make a pleasing and significant address at a 
few moment’s notice has ever been characteristic of the larger 
body of Kimball Union Academy alumni. The fact that most of 
these short addresses were wholly extemporaneous, as well as 
the fact that plans for the publication of the centennial pro¬ 
ceedings were late in formulating, account for the meagemess 
with which many of these excellent addresses are reported in 
this volume. 

The Old Home Week Association of Plainfield, in which 
town the parish of Meriden is situated, decided to hold their 
annual Old Home Day during anniversary week. Accordingly 
these exercises were set for the morning of Wednesday, June 
twenty-fifth, and the Old Home Week Committee of Harold W. 
Chellis, Miss Mary A. Freeman, and Robert R. Penniman, ap¬ 
pointed. 

The weather was favorable during the larger part of the 
time set for the celebration, though on Wednesday, threatening 
clouds kept many from the second performance of the Pageant 
of Meriden. The alumni returned in the anticipated large num¬ 
bers and taxed the accommodations available in the school and 
village to the utmost. Of the classes from 1849 to 1913, a pe- 



8 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


riod of sixty-four years, there were only four classes that were 
not represented. Besides, one member of a previous class, Miss 
Mary R. D. Frost, of the class of 1840, now the oldest graduate 
of the school, was present at her home in the village, and al¬ 
though unable to attend the exercises, received the many guests 
who called upon her. Through her clear memory of the past 
and kindness in allowing the use of the diary of her father, the 
late Dr. Frost, she contributed not a little to the success of the 
several events, especially the pageant. 

A description of the various events will be found in their 
respective order. It needs only to be added here that the care¬ 
ful preparation of the several committees, the generous help of 
the townspeople, and of the teachers and students of the school 
were amply rewarded. The many alumni who attended the 
centennial considered the event a red-letter day in their lives, 
and left Meriden with a firmer belief in the Academy and in its 
future. It faces the second century of its history with a re¬ 
newed pledge to serve the community, the state and the nation, 
growing out, in no small measure, of the confidence and prayers 
of this large body of loyal alumni. 

A list, as complete as possible, of the alumni present is pub¬ 
lished herewith. It can not be absolutely complete, as many of 
those present failed to register, or registered without class num¬ 
bers. 

It is the wish of the editors that this volume, with its many 
apparent omissions and shortcomings, may prove an acceptable 
souvenir of the centennial to the many guests present, and of 
still greater value to the larger body of alumni who were una¬ 
ble to be in Meriden during the days of June, nineteen hundred 
thirteen. 




THE NINETY-SEVENTH COMMENCEMENT 


Friday, June 20 
8.00 P. M. Pianoforte Recital 


Saturday, June 21 

8.00 P. M. Rev. Francis E. Qark Prize Speaking 


10.45 A. M. 
7.30 P. M. 


Sunday, June 22 
Baccalaureate Sermon, 

Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 


Vesper Service, 


Rev. Benjamin T. Marshall 


Monday, June 23 

9.00 A. M. Meeting of Board of Trustees 
10.30 A. M. Commencement Exercises at the Church 
Prayer 
Music 

Commencement Essays: 

Some Secrets of Success (Salutatory Rank) 

Gladys Leila Hill 


A Problem and its Solution 

Paul Brooks Wildey 
Vocational Guidance Ethel Hannah Garey 
The Challenge of the Country 

Charles Jefferson Rosenburg 
California and the Japanese 

Ruth Catherine French 
The Voice of Honor (Valedictory Rank) 

Hazen Southard Claflin 


10 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


2.00 P. M. Class Day Exercises on the Terraces 
Prayer 
Music 

Opening Address Ralph West Balch 

Class History Russell Kellogg Bourne 

Class Will May Harris Cook 

Class Poem Jean Eliza Baker 

Music 

Presentation of Baton to Class of 1914 

Clyde Russell Berkey 
Acceptance Cornelius Joseph Cronin, 

President of the Class of 1914 
Prophecy Lillabelle Hare 

Closing Oration Harold Sinclair Searle 

Class Song 




THE CLASS OF NINETEEN THIRTEEN 


Jean Eliza Baker 

May Harris Cook 

Ruth Catherine French 
Lillabelle Hare 

Gladys Leila Hill 

Ethel Hannah Garey 

Ruth Elizabeth Johnson 

Ralph West Balch 

Clyde Russell Berkey 

Russell Kellogg Bourne 

Ralph Peterson Chadbourn 
Hazen Southard Claflin 
Sidney James Green 

Montgomery Herbert 

George Herbert Moulton 

Charles Jefferson Rosenburg 
Harold Sinclair Searle 
Edward Thomas Wall 
Paul Brooks Wildey 


THE BACCALAUREATE SERMON 


The Baccalaureate Sermon was preached by Rev. Francis E. Clark, 
D.D., LL.D., of the Class of ’69, in the Church, on Sunday morning, 
June 22. Principal Charles Alden Tracy conducted the opening exer¬ 
cises and the student choir, under the direction of Miss Alta M. Bailey, 
furnished the music. The Class of 1913 were escorted to their seats in 
the body of the Church by the class marshal, Sidney J. Green. A large 
audience gave earnest attention to the inspiring words of the speaker. 

DR. CLARK’S SERMON 

Dr. Clark’s baccalaureate sermon was from the oft-re¬ 
peated phrase found in the first three chapters of the Book of 
Revelation, “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear,” refer¬ 
ring to the messages which the Revelator sent to the seven 
churches of Asia. The preacher called attention to the, fact 
that each message was a special, individual one, and that the 
seven churches were representative churches, representative 
not only of the churches of that day and of the Christians of 
that day, but of the Christians and the churches of the present 
day. 

For instance, Ephesus was the church of waning enthu¬ 
siasm, which had lost its first love, and it was rebuked on this 
account. The Revelator declared that the candle-stick would be 
removed out of its place except the church repented. This was 
especially appropriate because the city Ephesus had been moved 
no less than four times in the history of that once-mighty and 
powerful city. The church apparently shared the qualities of 
the city itself, and the message came with peculiar force, not 
only to that church, but to all who are fickle and changeable in 
their religious experiences. 

The church of Smyrna received no word of condemnation 
but only commendation, and the Revelator assured the people, 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


13 


“I will give thee a crown of life,” a most appropriate message, 
since the acropolis of Smyrna was surrounded with beautiful 
buildings which were often spoken of as the crown of the city. 
But the crown of life was far more important than a crown of 
buildings, in the eye of the Revelator. 

To the church in Pergamos was sent the message, “I know 
where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is.” Satan’s 
throne was the Temple of Rome and Augustus, before which 
Christians were brought in order to declare whether they would 
deny their allegiance to Christ and thus save their lives, or 
acknowledge Him and thus suffer the extreme penalty of tor¬ 
ture and death. 

The church of Sardis was spoken of by the Revelator as 
the church that had a name to live, but was dead, and the 
preacher who had just visited the seven cities said that among 
all the seven there was none so absolutely dead from the ma¬ 
terial standpoint, as the ancient city of Sardis, which was over¬ 
thrown by an earthquake in the year 17 of the Christian Era 
and buried under its own acropolis, a mountain which the 
people had always thought would defend it from all its enemies. 

Philadelphia was the church of the open door, because it 
was situated at the entrance of the great Anatolian Plain, and 
then, as now, travellers who wished to reach the vast region 
of Asia Minor, have to go through ancient Philadelphia, which 
is now an important railway center, and the open door to the 
vast and rich region beyond. This church, too, received only 
commendation from the Master, because it entered the open 
door and was a missionary church carrying the Greek civiliza¬ 
tion, and the religion of Christ, far into the interior. 

The church of Laodicea was also situated at a strategic 
point. It also might have been a church of the open door, for 
it stood at the entrance of the vast Phrygian region, and oc- 





i4 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


cupied much the same position as did Philadelphia. But it 
was immersed in its own concerns. It cared for its banks, for 
its black sheep, which furnished a peculiar kind of glossy wool 
which was much in demand, for its Phrygian powder, made 
into an unguent for the eyes. The Revelator gave to this church 
the most scathing rebuke of all, telling the Laodiceans that 
though they thought they were rich, they were poor and mis¬ 
erable and in need of all things, counselling them to buy, not 
the black cloth made from their famous sheep, but white rai¬ 
ment that they might be clothed, and not the Phrygian ointment 
for their eyes, but the true eye-salve by which their spiritual 
vision might be clarified, that they might see the things of true 
worth. But this church was self-satisfied. It cared for little 
but the present. It was neither very bad nor very good, but 
lukewarm, and the word “Laodicean” has become in all lang¬ 
uages the synonym for the most despicable of characteristics. 

Such are the churches of today. Some, alas, have lost their 
first love; some are neither hot nor cold. But, thank God, many 
are the churches of the open door, the missionary churches, 
which have seen their opportunity and have entered white 
harvest fields at home and far abroad. 

But more important for us, said the preacher, is it to con¬ 
sider the individual application, for churches are but made up 
of men and women, some of whose enthusiasms are waning, 
and some of whom are neither hot nor cold; while nominally 
religious, they are given up to the affairs of this world, im¬ 
mersed in the material things; like the Laodiceans of old, they 
care not for the opportunities for social service that await 
them on every hand. 

But many in these days, and I believe an increasing num¬ 
ber, belong to the church of Philadelphia. They see the vast 
opportunities before them and enter in at their open door 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


i5 


carrying the good news of a higher salvation and a noble Chris¬ 
tianity to the regions far beyond. 

Young men and women of the graduating class, to which 
of these churches do you belong? Though you may say that 
you have no church affiliations, that you have never united 
with the people of God, as represented in an organized church, 
yet you really belong to one or another of these groups. Have 
you lost your enthusiasms? Are spiritual things less real to 
you than in your boyhood and your girlhood? Then the mes¬ 
sage to the church of Ephesus is for you. 

Are you in difficult circumstances, surrounded by obsta¬ 
cles and discouragements to the Christian life? Are those with 
whom you are associated hostile or indifferent to the highest 
things? Then, in the message to the Church of Pergamos there 
is a word of encouragement. The Master knows where you 
dwell. He understands your difficulties; he appreciates your 
adverse circumstances, and He will make all allowances. 

I hope and pray that none of you belong to the church of 
Laodicea, that none of you are among those who are so en¬ 
grossed in mundane things that you never lift your eyes heaven¬ 
ward, that none of you are so busy with the muckrake that you 
cannot see the heavenly crown above your heads. 

I hope and pray that everyone of this class belongs to the 
church of Philadelphia. There is an open door for you, a door 
which no one else can enter, an opportunity for service which 
no one else can render. No man can shut this door except 
yourself. It will stand open for you to enter until you deliber¬ 
ately close it, and refuse to accept the opportunities for ser¬ 
vice, and for blessing your fellow-men. 

Will you enter the door or will you close it against your¬ 
self? He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches. 




THE ALUMNI REUNION 

In arranging the plans for the Centennial, Monday evening was set 
aside for a reunion of the alumni present. It was hoped that the meet¬ 
ing would he more or less informal, that there might be a considerable 
number of short addresses and some stories of the olden time. The gath¬ 
ering was held in the Church at 7.30 o’clock. Hon. Edwin G. Eastman 
’69, Ex-Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire, presided. 
The Centennial Hymn, “Meriden, My Meriden”, composed for the Bos¬ 
ton Alumni Association meeting, was sung. Only a few of the excellent 
addresses are here reported. Altogether it was an evening long to be 
remembered by the large number of former students present. 

DR. WHITE’S ADDRESS 

The first speaker of the evening was Dr. William R. White, of Prov¬ 
idence, R. I., and K. U. A. Class of ’70, who spoke in brief as follows: 

This is my first visit to Meriden since I graduated forty- 
three years ago, and truly it means much to me. On my journey 
hither I tried to fancy I was coming back to the school and vil¬ 
lage and associations I knew so well and had not forgotten. 
That, however, could not be, and I have been wandering about, 
lonely and depressed, looking in vain for classmates, teachers, 
and my old-time friends among the townspeople, but have found 
only a few of the last named—none of the former. The school 
buildings are not the same, the Common on the hilltop looks 
different, the old play-ground has been abandoned, and I have 
felt like a stranger in a new environment, although the wonder¬ 
ful atmosphere and scenery, the forest, hills, mountains, and 
valleys are here to greet our return just as they welcomed and 
charmed the founders of K. U. A. a century ago. 

In view of the accidents and vicissitudes that have befallen 
the dear old school in recent years, it is truly gratifying to find 
the present evidences of her material prosperity and the mani¬ 
fest spirit of loyalty and courage on the part of alumni, teach¬ 
ers, and students. 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


i7 


I am glad of this opportunity to see Mr. Principal Tracy in 
his working clothes, so to speak, and note the quiet but sure 
way in which he directs and controls every detail. Prior to this 
visit I had only seen him and heard him speak when on dress 
parade before the K. U. A. banquets at Boston, but my impres¬ 
sion of him then formed is fully confirmed now, that he is a 
man of no useless words, but admirable executive ability and de¬ 
votion to his work. 

Then again, I have been observing the active student body, 
and it has been a pleasure to see them, to hear them, and to 
realize that they are just the sort of young people this country 
needs to cherish, for I believe they intend to be clean, honest, 
and industrious. These surroundings and influences are good 
for them and they will never forget them or find the same again, 
wherever their life work may lead them. 

I witnessed the graduation exercises this morning, and was 
impressed by the earnestness and quiet dignity of the occasion 
and the excellence of the essays. 

I chanced to sit beside the mother of one of the splendid, 
manly boys of the graduating class, and as she listened to the 
kind, serious words of advice given to the class, I saw tears 
upon her cheek, and I knew her mother heart was deeply moved. 
She knew that her son must now go on to different conditions 
of life and association, and while she trusted him she prayed for 
him. 

It must be evident to us all that this school in this village 
continues to be a safe and wholesome resort for boys and girls 
who are willing to be orderly, studious, and industrious, and 
surely congratulations are in order for all who are personally 
connected with the management of the Academy. Where will 
you find another school that furnishes so much for so small a 
cost to the individual student? 




18 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


In all ways this meeting of so many friends of K. U. A. is 
delightful, and we are all making new friends whom it will be 
most pleasant to remember and meet again. 

The splendid gift of a farm to the school will prove of 
great value, and is most timely, for the indications are that 
practical, scientific farming must be the task of a larger num¬ 
ber of young men, if the earth is to produce according to the 
needs of her growing population, and this is especially true of 
New England. 

I enjoyed the Prize Speaking Saturday evening, and the 
Class Day exercises this afternoon. So far as I could gather, 
romance and love are vital forces in the school, and if Rule 
Twenty still exists perhaps it is not quite so rigorous as it was 
two score years ago. I recall an episode in my own student 
life: 

It was during my second or third term and I had not broken 
a rule—believe me or not, as you please. Then I had an irre¬ 
sistible desire to break Rule Twenty and proceeded to do so, 
by crossing the Common, at the mid-day recess, ringing the bell 
of Bryant block and asking to see one of the girls of my class. 
Strange to say I was admitted, the girl came to the reception 
room, and we certainly enjoyed a half hour’s chat. That was 
one day’s happiness. Next morning I heard my name spoken on 
the Chapel platform as part of an invitation to make another mid¬ 
day call. I made it, and Professor Richards was at home to me. 

I was asked certain questions as to motive and future inten¬ 
tions, and was excused after some very kind and fatherly ad¬ 
vice which I have never forgotten. I did not think the dear 
Doctor regarded my transgression as a serious one and I fan¬ 
cied I saw a twinkle in his keen eyes and a lurking smile on his 
expressive face as he showed me to the door. I left him with 
a deeper feeling of love and respect, with the consciousness that 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


19 


probably it would be wise for me to observe Rule Twenty in 
the future, but with the feeling that if Doctor Richards were to 
select any young man to be allowed to call on a nice girl at the 
Block, that young man would probably be White of 70. My 
friends, I am glad to say that I never again broke the famous 
Rule—in just the same way. 

REV. MR. CARPENTER’S ADDRESS 

One of the last speakers called up was Rev. C. C. Carpen¬ 
ter, of Andover, Mass., of the Class of 1856, who explained 
that a somewhat venerable gentleman had approached him early 
in the evening, and informed him that he would probably be 
asked to make some remarks, and immediately left him. But 
when he recognized that it was his old-time boy-friend, Charlie 
Richards, he half thought it was only one of his juvenile jokes. 
With the printed song of the evening in his hand as his text, 
he rapidly recalled some hearty memories of “Meriden, My 
Meriden,” as it was in his school days, nearly sixty years be¬ 
fore. He mentioned the familiar Academy building, the old- 
fashioned meeting-house on the hill, Thayer’s tavern, Barrow’s 
store, Bryant's Block, (always seen from a respectful distance), 
the ledges, the little hills on every side, the walks and the ex¬ 
citing slides. 

He remembered most vividly the teachers; first of all, Prin¬ 
cipal Richards, whom they all honored and admired, and came 
to love, the cultured teacher of Greek, the fearless administra¬ 
tor of sound and doubtless much-needed discipline; and his 
family too, from his noble helpmeet to his genial boy—all a host 
of help indeed, to a poor, tired, half-sick student. He remem¬ 
bered Mr. Rowe, of great, warm heart, and Mr. Baldwin, the 
philosopher, the critical Latin teacher, the personification as 
well as interpretor of Cicero. He cited a characteristic in- 




20 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


stance of Mr. Baldwin’s sharp but effective criticisms in the 
elocution class, when he commented on the boy’s first decla¬ 
mation, with his peculiar tone and accent, “I like the way you 
open your jaws!” He said that word was a help to him all his 
life, for he then highly resolved that if ever he succeeded in 
reaching the pulpit, he would speak so plainly that people could 
understand him, if he perished in the attempt. He remembered 
Parson Blanchard, with his long, strong, eloquent sermons; 
Squire Duncan; Dea. Morrill; Mr. and Mrs. Wells, who 
boarded the “club”; and Bezaleel Farnum, who knew everything 
he wouldn’t be expected to know. 

He spoke of his classmates, thirty-six of them—not to 
speak of the ladies, and they were not to be spoken to in those 
days, except in the rare and glorious levees at the school-hall, 
or down-street parsonage!—only thirteen of those boys left, 
only two beside himself present at this anniversary. He said 
the aggregate ages of those thirty-six classmates was nearly 
twenty-four hundred years, and of the thirteen now living, 
nearly one thousand years. He said that no one who was a 
student there in the winter of 1854-55, could forget its deep, 
pervasive, inspiring religious experiences, the sacred hush of 
the public meetings, and the large number of young men and 
women who then resolved to begin the Christian life. 

He recalled the memorable May Day in 1858, when in the 
old meeting-house twenty-eight orations were spoken, in evi¬ 
dence of which he exhibited a battered program, covered over 
with annotations-in Latin hardly worthy of Dr. Richards’ 
Senior^like “Bona^ax”—and with penciled cartoons, as that of 
“Linus Blakesley giving the pitch”, showing such genius that 
if the young artist had not become a well-known preacher and 
administrator of church benevolences, he might have made a 
Rembrandt or a Reynolds! He remembered, too, how those 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


21 


thirty boys and twenty girls sang the farewell song, “Half in 
joy, and half in sorrow”, written by Mary Green, the pride 
and joy of the class, but one of the first to pass away from its 
roll. 

But all these fond memories, he said, were past. What of 
the future? The beginning of a new century was a great emer¬ 
gency, a great opportunity, for the old school. What could the 
alumni do about it? Were they keeping track of current life 
in the Academy? Were they all taking the school magazine, 
with its newsy record and alumni notes? He urged the im¬ 
portance of the Centennial Endowment Fund. The next cen¬ 
tury would send out ten thousand new men and women with 
their uncounted years of service for the home, the country, 
the world. There will be many others like the Littles, like 
Charles H. Richards, Gilman Tucker, Horace Williams, John 
O. Barrows, George Chapin, Charles H. Woods, William J. 
Tucker, Frank Clark, Samuel L. Powers, Alfred S. Hall, Al¬ 
fred P. Sawyer, Judge Bell, Maj. Catlin, L. B. Downing, Dus¬ 
tin and Duncklee and Porter and all the rest of our familiar 
brother-alumni of the past, yet to go out from K. U. A. Should 
not the old school be strengthened and built up to train these 
future thousands, for their part in the world’s work? The few 
left of ’56 had pledged $500—other, later classes with fuller 
living membership could make larger additions to the funds so 
much needed to give our dear old Alma Mater a fresh start in 
its new century! 


Place this correction in the margin of page 20, 
K. U. A. Centennial Proceedings: 


Sixth line from bottom: 

with annotations—in Latin hardly worthy of Dr. Richards, 
Senior, like "Bona pax”—and with penciled cartoons, as that of 





22 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


MERIDEN, MY MERIDEN 

Air: “Lauriger Horatius” 

One hundred years have passed thee o’er, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
Thou Alma Mater, we adore, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
From ev’ry clime, from ev’ry shore, 

We meet thee at thy chapel door, 

And pledge to thee our love of yore, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 

Before thy feet thy children kneel, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
And there outpour the love we feel, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
Again inspire us with thy zeal, 

To fight for right, come woe, come weal, 
Always to us thy love reveal, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 

Thy sons shall ever guard thy name, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
Thy daughters watch thine altar flame, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 
We’ll never give thee cause for shame, 

We’ll bring fresh laurels to thy fame, 

And ever join in glad acclaim, 

Meriden, My Meriden! 







DR. RICHARDS’ LAST CLASS 











THE FORMAL ANNIVERSARY EXERCISES 


The formal exercises in observance of the One Hundredth Anniver¬ 
sary of the Granting of the Academy's charter were held in the Congre¬ 
gational Church at 10.00 o’clock, Tuesday morning, June 24. The church 
was filled with alumni, townspeople, and guests. Rev. Francis E. Clark, 
D.D., ’69, was the presiding officer. The music for the occasion was the 
singing of hymns by the assembly. Mrs. Abbie Richards Woodbury ’59, 
presided at the organ. The principal historical address, delivered by Rev. 
Charles H. Richards, D.D., ’54, and the Centennial Ode, written by Mrs. 
Marion Richardson Heath, are printed in full. Short addresses were 
made by the presiding officer, Alfred S. Hall, Esq., ’69, Alfred P. Saw¬ 
yer, Esq., ’74, Jason O. Cook ’02, and others. 

THE CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 

BY REV. CHARLES H. RICHARDS, D.D., OF NEW YORK 

The New England Academy is one of the fairest fruits of 
Puritan idealism. The pioneers, who laid the foundations of 
civil and religious democracy upon these shores, have been mis¬ 
takenly regarded by some as severely practical men who lacked 
in imagination and spiritual insight. Sternly devoted to the task 
of conquering a wilderness, some have fancied that they were 
absorbed only in the material and mechanical problems of their 
day. 

On the contrary, they were the idealists of their age. They 
were splendid visionaries, who saw a way to break out from the 
materialism of their times into the large, free life of the spirit 
which God intended for them, and they caught a glimpse of a 
Kingdom of God on earth in which every man should have his 
rights, and every life should have its opportunity to realize in 
itself the Divine ideal. Bergson and Eucken in our day do not 
affirm the supreme importance of the life of the spirit with any 
more earnestness than did our Pilgrim and Puritan forbears. 


24 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


They believed that this ideal commonwealth, whose vision 
was ever in their minds, must rest back upon character,— 
trained, disciplined, educated character. They held with Mrs. 
Browning that “it takes a soul to move a body”, and that the 
inner life of man must be sound and vigorous and thoroughly 
developed if there is to be large and lasting prosperity for a man 
or a community. Hence they planted side by side the church 
and the school. Six years after Boston was settled Harvard 
College was established, with Christo et Ecclesiae for its motto. 
Nearly sixty years later, in 1693, the College of William and 
Mary, the second in our country, was founded in Virginia. 
Seven years later Yale College was established in Connecticut 
with Lux et Veritas for its motto. 

These were the pioneer institutions for the higher education 
in America. But our fathers were not neglectful of secondary 
education. In 1647 the Massachusetts General Court passed a 
law that every town with fifty families should provide a school 
where children should be taught to read and write; and that 
every town with one hundred families should provide a gram¬ 
mar school whose master should be able to fit young men for 
college. Many of the ministers, also, took one or more boys into 
their homes to be fitted for college. Private and endowed acad¬ 
emies began to be established in the eighteenth century, several 
of which still continue, the oldest existing being Phillips Acad¬ 
emy, Andover, which was founded in 1778, during the time of 
the Revolutionary War. In the early part of the nineteenth 
century academies multiplied, till at length there were twenty- 
five in New Hampshire, twenty in Vermont, and more than a 
hundred in other New England states. Thus the dream of the 
fathers was being realized of a commonwealth based upon 
Christian education. 



The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


25 


This Academy was born in the heart of a young man. A 
New Hampshire boy had been fired with the purpose to preach 
the gospel. He had gone to Great Britain to prepare himself 
for the great work because he heard of a school there which 
would welcome a poor boy with but a common school training, 
and which with free tuition would train him for the ministry. 
He brought back to his native state a great enthusiasm for that 
sort of school, insisting that there ought to be an institution of 
the same character here. 

This youth, John Ford, who afterwards became pastor in 
Lebanon, N. H., kindled in his father the same burning convic¬ 
tion, and Deacon Joseph Ford stirred up his pastor and other 
friends, till desire ripened into purpose to have a similar insti¬ 
tution in this part of New England. It was to be a training 
school for ministers; and it was to give gratuitous instruction 
to such students for the sacred calling as were too poor to pay 
tuition. Conventions were held in Piermont, N. H., and Nor¬ 
wich, Vt., in 1811, which resolved to establish “The New 
Hampshire and Vermont Theological Seminary” as they named 
it. It seemed wise to enlarge the circle of councilors, and an¬ 
other assemblage of delegates from the General Associations of 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts con¬ 
vened in Windsor, Vt., on October 21, 1812. To this larger 
council came President Dwight of Yale College, three profes¬ 
sors from Andover Seminary, which had just begun its work 
in 1808, and three professors from Dartmouth. These wise 
men broadened the scope of the proposed school so that it 
should not merely “assist in the education of poor and pious 
youth for the ministry”, but should educate such others as the 
Trustees might choose to admit. President Dwight was espe¬ 
cially insistent that the school should not content itself with 
giving the partial and imperfect education which some had in 




26 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


mind as affording a short cut to the ministry, but that it should 
give a thorough preparatory training, and that its beneficiaries 
should expect to take a full collegiate and theological course 
after leaving this school. It was accordingly determined to 
make this institution an Academy and as it was the child of four 
associations of New England states, it was named by them the 
“Union Academy”. 

Such was the title under which it was chartered in June, 
1813, Governor J. T. Gilman signing his approval on the 16th 
day of that month, one hundred years and eight days ago. It 
was provided, however, that the name of the principal donor to 
the institution might be prefixed to this title at some later date. 

About forty-five years before that time a migratory stream 
set northward from Connecticut up the Connecticut river valley 
to this almost unsettled section. The roads were few and poor. 
For much of the way there was only a trail. Many a young 
man took his bride on horseback behind him, and pushed up into 
this almost unbroken wilderness to take up a farm on this fron¬ 
tier. They brought along the names of their Connecticut towns, 
so that Norwich, Hartford, Windsor, Lebanon, Plainfield, and 
others are echoes of the origin of these colonists. 

In this stream of migration to this region came Eleazar 
Wheelock in 1769, with his Indian school which for fifteen years 
he had conducted in Columbia, Conn. He transported it to 
Hanover, N. H., where it was chartered as Dartmouth College 
by Gov. John Wentworth in the name of George III. Vox 
clamantis in deserto, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
is the legend on its college bell, which has summoned many 
generations of students to chapel. 

In this same year (1769) came Benjamin Kimball from 
Preston, Connecticut, to this very spot, having purchased from 
the original proprietors seven hundred and fifty acres of land— 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


27 


more than a square mile—including the present site of Meriden 
where we now are. He was a man of substance and force, and 
he continued to reside here as one of the leading citizens of this 
region until his death in 1796, a period of twenty-seven years. 

With him came his wife and his only son, Daniel Kimball, 
then sixteen years of age. How scanty had been the early ad¬ 
vantages of this boy may be guessed from the fact that until 
this time he had not even learned to read. But he mastered the 
rudiments of education, and soon gained a practical training of 
another sort in the rough school of a soldier’s life, for as soon as 
the sound of British guns, began to be heard he enlisted in the 
Revolutionary army, came back from Quebec a sergeant, in two 
years was made an ensign, and in 1780 at West Point was 
an adjutant. Returning here in 1781, after this patriotic serv¬ 
ice and these repeated promotions, he speedily became a leader 
in all public affairs. Before he was thirty, he was made town 
clerk, selectman, and justice of the peace, remaining such to 
the end of his life. He was the merchant and the most active 
business man of the town, and was sent to the Legislature as 
representative and senator. 

It was natural that this forceful and aggressive man of af¬ 
fairs should, at the age of sixty, be drawn into the councils of 
those who were planning this institution. Where should it be 
located? Several places made a bid for the honor—Orford, 
Woodstock, Vt., and others. 

Then uprose this stately man, six feet in stature and of 
noble and benignant presence, stating that as God had blessed 
him with a liberal fortune with no natural heir to inherit it, he 
was ready to pledge to the young Academy six thousand dollars 
at once, and the bulk of his fortune after his death. This gen¬ 
erous offer was gratefully accepted, and the location was fixed at 
Meriden, the home of the benefactor. After his untimely death 




28 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


in 1817, at the age of sixty-four, his name was prefixed to the 
title and it became, and has ever since remained, Kimball Union 
Academy. The generous donor, Daniel Kimball, whose gifts 
and bequest together brought to the institution about $40,000, 
has his name immortalized and his memory perpetuated in the 
institution he did so much to establish. 

It is worth while just here to exercise the historic imagina¬ 
tion, and reproduce, if possible, the condition of things a hun¬ 
dred years ago when this Academy was started. 

What was our country a century ago? It was strangely 
different from the nation of today. There were seven and a 
quarter millions of people, instead of nearly a hundred millions, 
and they were for the most part east of the Alleghanies. We 
had eighteen stars in our flag, instead of the forty-eight now 
emblazoned on the blue. James Madison as President was 
again defending our country against the assaults of England in 
what has been called “our second war for independence”, the 
war of 1812. In the very year when this Academy was char¬ 
tered, Commodore Oliver H. Perry built his fleet of five ships 
out of logs which he cut on the shore of Lake Erie and captured 
the British fleet off Toledo. The next year President Madison 
and his cabinet fled in hot haste from Washington, and the 
British troops marched in and burned the Capitol. And the 
next year, 1815, the very year when the first Academy build¬ 
ing was completed here, Andrew Jackson won his famous vic¬ 
tory at New Orleans, and inaugurated the hundred years of 
peace which we are about celebrating. A hundred years ago 
Cleveland, Ohio, marked our frontier line, and beyond it were 
great stretches of wilderness, peopled mostly by Indians. Four- 
fifths of the United States had then not a single white settler. 
It was in 1811, when the first council was considering the pro¬ 
posal to start this school, that General Harrison won the battle 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


29 


of Tippecanoe, vanquishing the Indians, who, under Tecumseh, 
hoped to drive out of the West all white settlers, leaving it sim¬ 
ply a big hunting ground for the redmen. The great anti-slav¬ 
ery struggle had hardly begun at that time. In 1808, Con- 
,41 gress forbade the farther importation of slaves, but more than 
half a century of sharp contention over the continuance and ex¬ 
tension of human slavery was yet to follow before the climax 
was reached in our Civil war, and the national incubus was 
thrown off. Clipper ships were still sailing the ocean, bringing 
us latest news from Europe in two or three weeks, and telling 
us in 1815, when Otis Hutchins was opening his first class here, 
how Wellington had vanquished Napoleon at Waterloo, and had 
sent that brilliant meteor into lasting eclipse. 

And what was New Hampshire a century ago? It was the 
same old Granite State as today. It had about 215,000 people 
within its borders, half as many as now. They were a sturdy, 
liberty loving, progressive folk, living on farms, and in the 
villages that clambered over the hills or nestled in the valleys. 
They were a homogeneous people of English antecendents and 
with few foreigners among them. The invasion from Canada, 
^ from Sweden, from Southern Europe, had hardly begun. But 
the conditions of their simple life were very different from those 
of today. Candles and whale oil lamps took the place of electric 
lights. The big fireplace in the old fashioned kitchen, with a 
crane from which hung the pots and kettles, was the fore¬ 
runner of the modern range. There was no such thing as a 
railroad, or telegraph, or telephone, or sewing machine. If one 
had an aching tooth, it was pried out with a turnkey without 
any palliative, for ether was not discovered till 1844. People 
did not have the satisfaction of labelling their diseases with 
such high-sounding names as now. There was no such thing 
as tuberculosis, though many died of consumption. Appendici- 




30 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


tis was a thing unknown, though some died of inflammation 
of the bowels. Daniel Kimball is said to have died of “an 
affection of the lungs attended with fever”, apparently what 
would now be called pneumonia, but that disease was then un¬ 
heard of by the common people. Express companies did not 
exist till 1839, and freight trains did not run till about that 
time, so that merchants had to stock their stores by means of 
four-horse teams running from Boston. Fortunately, they had 
pretty good roads, for when this school was founded there were 
twenty turnpike corporations in New Hampshire, twenty-six in 
Vermont, and one hundred and eighty in all New England. 
In simple homes, with simple pleasures, the frugal, hard-work¬ 
ing, God-fearing and intelligent citizens of New Hampshire, got 
more out of life and achieved a success more real and satis¬ 
factory than multitudes today who have far more of what thev 
call “advantages” and modern improvements, but less of char¬ 
acter and content. It was out of such homes that the students 
were to come to this new school, clean in life, clear in brain, 
eager for education, and not afraid of hard work. It is the 
very stuff out of which are made leaders in church and state, 
captains of industry, merchant princes, heralds of the Cross at 
home and abroad. 

What was .Meriden a hundred years ago? In its physical 
features it was essentially the same as now. The beautiful vil¬ 
lage on its rounded hill was like an exquisite jewel in a won¬ 
derful setting of emeralds. The massive wall of verdure in the 
Grantham and Croydon mountains on the east, the picturesque 
peaks of “the ledges” on the west, the splendid vista of the 
valley to the southwest stretching its lovely panorama toward 
the sunset till it meets the blue height of glorious Ascutney, 
these made Meriden, then as now, one of the most beautiful 
villages in New England. The charm of its landscapes creates 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


3i 


a spell which fascinates all who visit it. The inspiration of 
the mountains in their majesty, of flowery meadows, of the 
autumn splendor of the forests, of the sheen and sparkle of the 
fields in winter, enters into character as a formative power. 
Emotions of wonder, of rapture, of worship are kindled in the 
thoughtful soul by such scenes. Such beauty is itself an educa¬ 
tor. 

But while the physical characteristics were much the same 
a hundred years ago as now, there were many differences in de¬ 
tail. The village street passed over the hill as it does today. 
The large, plain mansion of Daniel Kimball stood on the west 
side of “the Common”, and the old fashioned meeting house, 
built in 1797, stood on the north side, being furnished within 
with a high pulpit and sounding board, and with box 
pews. The roomy and comfortable homes of the people were 
sprinkled over hill and valley much as now, while the patient 
oxen toiled along the roads hauling wood, hay or other products 
of the field. Farmers fought the stubborn soil successfully, 
carried their corn to the gristmill on horseback, and, without 
much cash, but with plenty of comfort, lived independent and 
prosperous lives. It was a rural community, with the intelli¬ 
gence and enterprise typical of the New England of that day. 

Hither came Otis Hutchins, the first principal, to assist in 
the dedication of the first academy building on January 9, 1815. 
The building stood on the eastern side of the hilltop as now. 
The next day the first session of the school, afterwards to be¬ 
come famous as one of the foremost academies in the country, 
was opened with seven students in attendance,—one for each 
day of the week. Perhaps the number was regarded as auspi¬ 
cious, seven being a sacred number. At any rate, the institu¬ 
tion which had been the object of so many councils and prayers 




32 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


was now fairly launched, and its long and illustrious career wa« 
well begun. 

Mr. Hutchins was a Dartmouth graduate of good ability 
and excellent scholarship, who won the warm regard of citizens 
and pupils alike. For four years he presided over the infant 
school, leaving in 1819 to take charge of another academy for 
two years, after which he retired to a farm in Westmoreland, 
N. H., where he lived for forty-four years. 

The second principal, Mr. John Luke Parkhurst, a gradu¬ 
ate of Brown University, printed a catalogue in the fall of 1819 
when he assumed charge, showing that the seven original stu¬ 
dents had grown to one hundred and four, of whom nineteen 
were women, and eighty-five were men. There appear to have 
been many interruptions in the school-life during his adminis¬ 
tration, much of the time regular sesions being suspended and 
only private recitations held. The wheels of the chariot dragged 
so heavily that in 1822, the year he retired, there were no grad¬ 
uates at all. He withdrew to be a teacher and editor else¬ 
where for more than twenty years, when he also retired to a 
farm. 

New life and vigor came to the Academy when Israel 
Newell came in 1822 to preside over its destinies for thirteen 
years. A graduate of Bowdoin, he was a good teacher and an 
excellent executive. Organizing the school more thoroughly, his 
stimulating influence upon his pupils was marked, and he gave 
to the Academy a reputation and standing it had not previously 
possessed. With an average attendance of a little more than 
one hundred students each year, the tuition-received during Mr. 
Newell’s term of service was never equal to his salary. Yet it 
was a most useful school, and many men of ability, who after¬ 
wards rendered valuable and eminent service in state and 
church, were trained by him. Two years after he took charge 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


33 


of the school the first Academy building was burned (1824), 
and a new edifice of modest proportions was erected, which fif¬ 
teen years later became the wing of the main x\cademy build¬ 
ing, which for more than forty years was the home of the 
growing school. 

Worn in health by the exacting duties of his office, Mr. 
Newell resigned in 1835, and returned to Maine. The Trus¬ 
tees then selected as the fourth principal of the Academy a 
young man just graduating from Dartmouth College, Cyrus 
Smith Richards, who was to be the presiding genius in a devel¬ 
opment which placed this Academy in the very first rank of 
American preparatory schools, and whose leadership was to 
continue for thirty-six years. He was a graduate of the Acad¬ 
emy, and during his senior year in college had taught Mr. New¬ 
ell’s classes in the school here during two considerable periods. 
A keen and critical scholar, and with a rare power of creating 
enthusiasm in his pupils, he seemed to the Trustees just the man 
to undertake the responsible task of shaping the future of the 
institution and with good promise of success. On the day he 
graduated from college they surprised him by electing him to 
the principalship. After careful consideration, he accepted the 
position, and for more than three and a half decades he poured 
his life into the school and into the hundreds of young lives 
which came under the inspiring influence of his strong per¬ 
sonality. He at once raised the standard of scholarship, deter¬ 
mined that students of Kimball Union Academy seeking en¬ 
trance to college should be as thoroughly prepared as those 
from the very best institutions in the country. Within five 
years he had persuaded those who were about establishing a 
Female Seminary in this village, toward which Madame Kim¬ 
ball had promised to give $10,000, to make it an integral part 
of the Academy, as a special department. He increased the 




34 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


teaching force so that three men and two women specially 
equipped for their work, were the permanent teachers, with 
such assistants as were needed. The rapidly increasing pat¬ 
ronage of the school, to which young men and women from 
many states and from Canada flocked for instruction, justi¬ 
fied the larger plans and the more thorough-going discipline 
which he inaugurated. He associated with himself strong and 
efficient teachers in every department, under whom it was a 
delight to study. A serious illness in 1870 caused him in 1871 
to lay down a burden which had grown too heavy for him, and 
he resigned to become the Dean of the Preparatory Department 
in Howard University in Washington, D. C., where he con¬ 
tinued for fourteen happy years, dying in harness just after 
he had completed half a century of teaching, and had graduated 
his fiftieth class. The year before his death, General Eaton, 
United States Commissioner of Education announced at the 
National Teachers’ Association that Dr. Richards had fitted 
more young men for college than any other teacher in the coun¬ 
try. 

In the forty-two years since that time eight principals have 
presided over the school with rare fidelity. The Rev. John E. 
Goodrich, a graduate of the University of Vermont and a su¬ 
perior scholar, served for a single year, and withdrew to become 
professor in his Alma Mater at Burlington. 

He was followed by the Rev. Lewis A. Austin, a graduate 
of Middlebury College, who for three years stood at the helm, 
and later gave instruction in Greek in the school. 

Then came in 1875, Mr. George J. Cummings, a graduate 
of Kimball Union and of Dartmouth, and a teacher here for 
six years before he became principal. A wise and skilful ad¬ 
ministrator, the school prospered during the five years of his 
guidance, and regretted his withdrawal in 1880 to become prin- 



The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


35 


cipal of Monson Academy, which he left in 1885 to become the 
successor of Dr. Cyrus S. Richards a second time, following 
him as the Dean of the Preparatory Department in Howard 
University in Washington, D. C., a position he has admirably 
filled for twenty-eight years. 

After him came in 1880, Mr. Marshall R. Gaines, who for 
four years stood at the head of the school, leaving it to take 
charge of the Tillotson Institute in Texas, and to engage in mis¬ 
sionary work in Japan. 

Mr. David G. Miller, valedictorian of his class at Dart¬ 
mouth in 1884, came that fall to take the principalship, which 
he held for six years, then going to Cleveland, O., and later to 
Taunton, Mass., as principal. 

He was followed in 1890 by Mr. William H. Cummings, 
another graduate of Dartmouth, who served faithfully for ten 
years, carrying the school out of the Nineteenth Century and 
over the threshold of the Twentieth, leaving in 1900 to become 
Superintendent of Schools in Hadley, Mass. 

Mr. Ernest R. Woodbury, a graduate of Bowdoin Col¬ 
lege, and with three years’ experience in teaching elsewhere, 
then took charge of the school, remaining five years, and leav¬ 
ing to become principal of the academy in Saco, Maine. 

The twelfth principal is Mr. Charles Alden Tracy, a grad¬ 
uate here in 1893, and of Dartmouth in 1897, whose administra¬ 
tion has been one of marked wisdom and success, and whose 
leadership gives promise of decided progress in the future. The 
increase in assets which have lately been secured are largely 
due to his initiative and skill, and his large plans for the ad¬ 
vancement of the institution have awakened enthusiasm among 
all its friends. May the seven years of his principalship be mul¬ 
tiplied at least five-fold. 




36 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


But if the school owes much to its principals, it also owes 
much to the able and scholarly assistants. Words of high praise 
should be given to the brilliant Charles Shedd ; to Alphonso 
Wood, the eminent botanist; to Cyrus Baldwin, the polished 
grammarian and philosophic thinker; to Elihu T. Rowe, the 
soldier-preacher; to Abel Wood, the sweet singer; to L. Henry 
Cobb, the great church builder; to Nathan Barrows, the scien¬ 
tist, and to many others. Nor should we fail to mention the 
faithful and accomplished women who have taught here, such 
as Martha M. Green, S. Helen Richards, Mary S. Bates, Emily 
S. Kent, Mary S. Prentiss, Mary M. Nudd, and many others 
whose names shine like stars in the memory of their pupils. 

Those who were here in the Fifties and Sixties perhaps 
saw the school at the highest tide of its prosperity. It was an 
impressive sight when the army of young people at the sum¬ 
mons of the Academy bell streamed up the hill from east and 
west and across the campus, pouring the flood of young life 
into the chapel for morning prayers. Three hundred and twen¬ 
ty-five boys and girls crowded the room one term. At one time 
the total enrollment for the year was over five hundred. Grad¬ 
uating classes ranged from forty to nearly sixty. The chapel 
service was simple and inspiring, the music being led by the 
“Harmonic Society” without the support of piano or organ. It 
was good singing, too, being so good, in fact, that one winter 
the “Harmonic Society” sang through the old “Handel and 
Haydn Collection” of English Glees under the guidance of 
Mr. Abel Wood. 

Twice a week, after the religious service, the principal or 
one of his assistants gave a talk to the school on conduct, char¬ 
acter, hygiene, duty, manners, education, or some other topic 
upon which the experience and wisdom of the teacher might be 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


37 


of help to the student. Sometimes it was a searching and ear¬ 
nest talk upon the religious life. It was like a big family gath¬ 
ering, in which fatherly counsel illuminated the minds waiting 
for light. 

After the ten-minute talk the classes went trooping off to 
No. 5, No. 6, Ladies’ Hall, the Lecture Room, or other rooms, 
and the vigorous, clean-cut, stimulating, intellectual training 
was at once in full swing. Mastery was the ideal; every diffi¬ 
culty conquered, every branch of study mastered. The cur¬ 
riculum was narrower than now, but the mental discipline was 
admirable. 

The 12 o’clock bell gave surcease for two hours from this 
exacting work, with a chance for dinner and recreation. And 
who shall say that New Hampshire boys and girls could not 
find plenty of wholesome sport, even though modern baseball 
and football and tennis and golf were as yet unknown here. 
Coasting was then, as now, a favorite winter recreation. Per¬ 
haps no one here remembers the day when Charlie Glidden 
(later Judge Glidden of Ohio) sat on a sled, holding the tongue 
of a big horse sled behind on which were packed twenty-eight 
girls, all in a twitter because they were to toboggan down the 
hill and thus get the sensation of their lives. Starting from 
Bryant Block they went like a shot past the principal’s house, 
and like a streak of lightning across the level space beyond. As 
he approached the parsonage, Glidden saw to his horror Mr. 
Samuel Bean with his fine horse and sleigh just at the bridge at 
the foot of the hill. He had to decide in a second whether to 
steer off the bridge into the icy creek, perhaps breaking the 
limbs or necks of the twenty-eight girls, or sacrifice himself on 
the horse and sleigh. He chose the latter. His sled struck Mr. 
Bean’s rig like a catapault, knocked the horse down, smashed 
the sleigh, injured both men, but spilled the girls out into the 




38 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


soft snow without harm. Glidden was the orator of the school 
and his tongue was split open, but it was sewed up so well by 
the skilful doctor that he was later a silver-tongued spellbinder 
and honored jurist in the “Buckeye” State. Such was the sport, 
and such the gallantry of those days. 

Two o’clock, and the hard work of study hours and class¬ 
room was on again. 

Evening came, and once a week the Philadelphian and 
Minervian societies made the welkin ring with speech and poem 
and essay and debate. The girls were a fair match for their 
brothers in these matters. Once a term the public meetings of 
these societies revealed to large audiences what budding gen¬ 
iuses were here. It was a great night when Frederick Noble 
smashed the Fugitive Slave Law into splinters; soon after he 
went down to Yale trailing clouds of glory behind him. And 
there have been other great nights and great speakers from that 
day to this. If the ladies did not handle such exciting political 
themes, they far surpassed the suffragettes of today in the san¬ 
ity, brilliancy, and beauty of their papers. 

The vicissitudes through which the school has passed, out 
of which it has come to a new success, deserve to be recalled. 

The first serious interruption to a prosperity which had 
been unbroken for thirty years came with the outbreak of the 
Civil War. When the Union was imperiled and Abraham Lin¬ 
coln called for volunteers ready to risk their lives on “the far 
flung battle line”, in order that “government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people might not perish from the earth”, 
there was a mighty stir among the young hearts here. The fire 
of patriotism was at white heat in every bosom. The echo 
of the guns at Sumter and Bull Run roused the young men to 
a sense of deep responsibility. The play-ground became a drill- 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


39 


camp. An expert drill master from Norwich University came 
to train the entire student force of young men in the soldier’s 
art. Many enlisted. Nearly the entire class of ’61 donned the 
blue uniform and marched away to the front. One of the 
permanent teachers, Mr. Rowe, went for a year as chaplain. 
Our boys gave a good account of themselves, winning chevrons 
and bars and stars to indicate that they were corporals and 
sergeants, adjutants, captains, majors, colonels, or generals. 
Many of them returned no more, having given their lives as a 
sacrifice for their country. For four years this absence of 
young men in the army seriously diminished the attendance 
here, and the increased needs of the home kept many of the 
young women away. 

Another deterrent to the prosperity of the school came 
with the development of high schools in many of the larger 
towns of the state. These provided educational facilities for 
many students nearer home, and as a matter of economy and 
convenience they withdrew their attendance from here. The 
state thus took over a considerable constituency of the Academy, 
causing a serious depletion of its ranks. 

The meagre endowment of the school yielded smaller re¬ 
turns as the years went on. This had a crippling effect, reduc¬ 
ing the teaching force and diminishing the attractiveness of the 
school as compared with other schools with large endowments. 
Thus the school dwindled, till it reached its lowest ebb, hav¬ 
ing in one term only twenty-five scholars, or less than one- 
twelfth of its record attendance. 

Just then the “hundred dollar plan” was introduced, and it 
turned the tide. It was first suggested by Miss Myrah Everest 
(now Mrs. Caldwell) that if a worthy young person would bring 
$100 cash, and would work under direction of the school au¬ 
thorities a certain number of hours each week, he should have 




4 o 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


a year’s schooling, tuition free. This boon was eagerly ac¬ 
cepted by many, and sixty or seventy “hundred-dollar students” 
were quickly enrolled. 

But while these brave and plucky workers were thus hold¬ 
ing the plow with one hand, and Cicero or Sallust with the 
other, a new calamity burst upon the school. The cry of “Fire” 
rang out through the startled village, and in a few hours the 
time-honored Academy building, whose classic beauty and dig¬ 
nity had won the admiration and affection of fifty generations 
of student classes, lay a smouldering heap of ashes. As though 
Providence meant to make a clean sweep here, fire soon after¬ 
ward destroyed the old hotel and lightning fell with a double 
stroke upon the church, leaving the hilltop a scene of desolation. 
It is not strange that many thought the Academy had reached 
its nunc dimittis, and that its end had come. 

But they failed to estimate the courage and resolution of 
those then in active service here. Recitations were not sus¬ 
pended for a single day, but went on in the village schoolhouse 
and in Bryant Hall. Steps were quickly taken for the restora¬ 
tion of the buildings. And here they stand today, better and 
more beautiful than ever. The overwhelming calamity has 
turned out to be a blessing in disguise. 

The name of Arthur F. Spaulding should be crowned with 
our laurel today, for in the inception of the hundred-dollar 
plan which he made a success, and in the transmuting of these 
calamities into victories, he was a tower of strength here. His 
courage and devotion, his sagacity and strenuous personal ef¬ 
fort were largely instrumental in the rehabilitation of the 
school. 

Other names will also be kept in lasting remembrance, of 
those whose generous donations have added to the equipment 
or endowment of the Academy. This is not the place for the 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


4i 


complete statement of such donors and their gifts, but we grate¬ 
fully recall the names of Dexter Richards, who, after the disas¬ 
trous fires, provided the hall which bears his name and made 
other large gifts; of John D. Bryant, whose family was inti¬ 
mately connected with that of the founder, and who gave Bryant 
Hall and other large donations to the school; of the Duncan 
family, who perpetuate the memory of two treasurers, father 
and son, by their gift; of Alfred S. Hall, whose donation of the 
experimental farm in memory of his son, opens a new oppor¬ 
tunity for the school; of Dr. E. K. Baxter, and J. F. Kilton, 
and Elijah Burnap, whose splendid gifts have helped to secure 
the future of the Academy. Many other alumni have con¬ 
tributed toward the perpetuation and enlarged usefulness of 
this time-honored institution. We look forward gladly 
to the completion of the new endowment of $150,000, and 
also to the new Gymnasium, the new Dormitory, and the Labora¬ 
tory building, which, it is hoped, will stand around the campus in 
due time. They are all essential for the larger work this Acad¬ 
emy is now called upon to do. 

What have been the characteristics of this school which 
have given it distinction among its fellows? 

Thoroughness of scholarship stands first. Whatever work 
is done here must be done well. Superficial smatterers, con¬ 
tent to pick up a few facts while they have no real mastery 
of the topic studied, have never found comfort here. They 
have been tormented by the drill and discipline which the teach¬ 
ers required who made this school famous, and soon have be¬ 
taken themselves to easier places. Here the standard has been 
kept high because of the conviction that the only way to make 
strong men and women, able to think straight and do the world’s 
best work, is to drill them into habits of accuracy, mental alert- 




42 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


ness, certainty of knowledge, mental grasp of the problems con¬ 
sidered. The human mind is a tool to be of great service in life, 
and here it is to be developed, and tempered into elasticity, 
made supple and keen, and thoroughly fitted for most effective 
use. The Greek and Latin and Mathematics and other branches 
of study are the machinery by which this mental equipment is 
made complete, and hard, thorough going work provides the fire 
that tempers the steel and the grindstone that puts on the edge 
of the Damascus blade. 

Doubtless it was this thoroughness that enabled Chief Jus¬ 
tice Walbridge A. Field, a graduate here, to go through Dart¬ 
mouth with a perfect mark in every study; and that caused this 
Academy to furnish ten college presidents to the country rep¬ 
resenting over one hundred and eighty-five years of service; 
and provided governors and senators and judges and statesmen 
to render such large public service to our land. 

It has been said that the end of education is efficiency; 
that its aim is not so much to store the memory with facts, as 
to secure the highest mental, moral, and physical efficiency. 
And to an unusual degree this institution has done that. It has 
taken the sturdy youth of this section of the country, and has 
taught them concentration and self-possession, the ability to 
apply all their powers to the task in hand, thus giving them 
the first principles of sound thinking, and the knowledge that 
hard work is better than genius. It has sent forth its graduates 
with broader horizons and loftier visions. The discipline of 
mind has made them helpful citizens and successful workers in 
the world. They have multiplied their power tenfold by the 
thorough work which developed and trained them here. 

The emphasis laid upon character has been another marked 
feature of this school. It is not enough to make good scholars. 
Far more important is it to make strong men and noble women. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


43 


If character consists of ideals, convictions, habits, and spirit, 
the most important part of education lies in implanting the 
noblest ideals, developing convictions, giving drill in right hab¬ 
its, and the culture of a worthy spirit. It is a good thing to 
know how to “read, write, and cipher”, and how to demonstrate 
a problem in Euclid or scan a line in Virgil; but it is a grander 
thing to know how to lead an ideal life. It is a good thing to 
impart knowledge: but it is a far finer and more necessary 
thing to mould a life into that image which shall reflect the 
splendor of God’s plan for it. 

Exactly this has been a prime aim of this institution. It 
has been even more ambitious to turn out young men and 
women who should be a blessing to the world, than to pro¬ 
duce star scholars to carry off prizes and honors at Dartmouth 
and Yale. The standard of Manhood here has been kept high, 
fairly matching that of King Arthur who (according to Tenny¬ 
son) spoke of his Round Table as 

“A glorious company, the flower of men, 

To serve as models for the mighty world, 

And be the fair beginning of a time. 

I made them lay their hands in mine, and swear 

To reverence the King as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity.” 

If this institution had this lofty aim for the young men 
under its influence, not less high was its purpose for their sisters. 
It sought to help each one of them to become 

“The perfect woman, nobly planned, 

To warn, to comfort, to command.” 




44 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


The high ideals thus set before the young people assem¬ 
bled here may not always have been realized. You cannot make 
saints to order. But the hundreds of youth who have received 
their academic training in this school would doubtless bear 
unanimous testimony to the fact that Meriden has been a great 
character-making place, that they received impressions and im¬ 
pulses here that lifted their lives to a loftier level. The in¬ 
spiration received here has helped to make them better men and 
women. 

In immediate connection with this there appears another 
leading feature of the Academy, viz., its strong religious spirit. 
It must not be forgotten that a primary purpose in establishing 
this school was that there might be begun here the training of 
an educated ministry. The founders had the same feeling as did 
those who established Harvard College, and who wrote in 1643 
that they sought “to advance Learning, and perpetuate it to Pos¬ 
terity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the churches, 
when our present Ministers shall lie in the dust”. For many 
years there was a considerable group of young men here whose 
hearts were set on preaching the gospel as their life-work. 
They were poor in pocket, but rich in faith. They were work¬ 
ing their way through a ten-year course of training in Academy, 
College and Seminary, that they might then be pastors or mis¬ 
sionaries in the service of the Christian church. As the nation 
supports the students at West Point and Annapolis who are 
being trained to fight its battles, so these cadets of the church 
were assisted by a special fund set apart for their aid. Not 
less than $25,000 has been expended here to lighten the burden 
of these embryo preachers. Many other graduates of the school 
entered the Christian ministry who received no such aid; but 
doubtless this fund to carry out the original intent of the found¬ 
ers is an important reason for the fact that there have gone 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


45 


forth from this school not less than four hundred ministers 
of the gospel in this country, and twenty-nine missionaries in 
foreign lands, the latter representing over four hundred and 
fifty years of service. 

The presence of a group with such serious intent had a very 
wholesome effect on the life of the school. It was like the 
effect of a group of student volunteers in a school today. It 
reminded all of the higher interests of life, and of the suprem¬ 
acy of the claims of the Christian religion upon every soul. 
Reinforced by the daily chapel service, at which the principal 
or one of his assistants frequently pressed home upon the 
conscience the duty of each one to submit the will to God, and 
consecrate the whole life to the one great Master of life, it is 
not strange that many here dedicated themselves to Christ and 
his service. Seasons of special religious interest occasionally 
added their deep impression. The religious meetings of the 
young people were very interesting and helpful. Many a Chris¬ 
tian home and many a pastorate dates back to this hilltop where 
life had its new-birth, and caught a vision of the supreme 
realities. And we are glad to think that the great world-wide 
movement for the development of the Christian life of young 
people in all lands of the world, the Young People’s Christian 
Endeavor Society, a realized dream of the distinguished Presi¬ 
dent of the Board of Trustees of this Academy, Dr. Francis 
E. Clark, has one of its roots reaching back to his school days 
here. Thus has there been exhibited in this school through its 
century of life a fine example of Christian education, in which 
nurture of the spiritual life has gone hand in hand with intel¬ 
lectual training. 

Another marked feature of the Academy deserving special 
notice has been its co-education. It is difficult for us to realize 
in our day the skepticism that formerly prevailed concerning 




4 6 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


higher education for women. In these times when the great 
women’s colleges are turning out mathematicians and philoso¬ 
phers and philologists by hundreds, and Cornell and Oberlin 
and the great state universities are offering their courses on 
equal terms to girls as well as boys, it seems a matter of course 
for a girl to seek as broad and complete an education as her 
brother. 

Our forefathers would have stood aghast at the sight. 
Men must be highly educated, they thought, for they must meet 
on equal terms the trained scholars and statesmen of the world. 
But woman is mistress of the home, and needs to know only 
enough to order her household well. Let her stick to her 
distaff, and let grammar and science alone. Learning will spoil 
her loveliness, they said. Too much education will rob her 
of her skill as cook and housemother. To be sure, Miriam the 
prophetess, and Deborah the judge, and Hypatia the philoso¬ 
pher, and Portia the lawyer, and Elizabeth the highly educated 
Queen, had shown in history and drama what women might 
do. But they were regarded by our ancestors as freaks, the 
abnormal sports of nature, and no fit example for the average 
girl. 

A hundred and twenty-five years ago in a Connecticut hill- 
town, another academy was started by another Revolutionary 
officer whose granddaughter became the wife of the fourth prin¬ 
cipal of this institution, and whose great-granddaughters are 
here today. Because he proposed to include in his classes young 
women as well as young men, he was set upon by his church and 
denounced as an impious violator of the Divine plan for the 
sexes, which never intended to have women know as much as 
men. It took a council of churches to quiet these alarmists, 
and persuade them to let that academy develop, which after¬ 
wards became the pride of the town. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


47 


Such was the doubt which was quite prevalent a century 
ago as to the wisdom and value of an education for women 
co-equal with that for men. Slowly that doubt was dissipated 
and it came to be regarded as desirable for a girl to go hand in 
hand with her brother through an academic training as far as 
the door of the college—then she was to stop short. 

In the earlier classes here, a few girls recited with the 
boys. We count in the General Catalogue eighty-five names 
of women in the classes preceding 1840. In that year, Madam 
Kimball having been persuaded to give up her pet plan of build¬ 
ing a separate seminary for girls a quarter of a mile away, a 
special department for young women was organized in the 
Academy, and the institution was definitely committed to co¬ 
education. Those in charge of the school believed in it. They 
were convinced that women were capable of receiving as high 
an education as men, and were as much entitled to it, and were 
sure that the effect on each of studying the same subjects, in 
the same classes would be salutary and inspiring. The fact 
that six hundred women, more than a third of the number of 
male graduates, have received diplomas from this institution, 
and that hundreds more have taken partial courses here abun¬ 
dantly vindicates the judgment of those who inaugurated this 
department. The girls have done every whit as well as the 
boys, and have carried the culture and spirit of this school into 
hundreds of homes all over this land. 

Very naturally there was some fear that the mutual attrac¬ 
tion of the sexes might breed distraction in the studies. Great 
precautions were taken to prevent such a catastrophe. The 
famous “Rule 20” provided that there should be no communica¬ 
tion between the boys and girls except on certain rare occa¬ 
sions and under strict limitations. And the rule worked pretty 
well. The girls sat on one side of the chapel and classroom, 




48 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


and the boys on the other, demure and absorbed in the topic 
in hand. But electricity is an eccentric and unmanageable force, 
and the way the sparks would leap from some eyes across 
the aisle making hearts tingle on the other side was amazing. 
Cupid was not allowed to have his name in the catalogue, but 
he occasionally got into the school, and his darts went home 
to the right spot. There was not much love making apparent, 
but the General Catalogue seems to indicate that a considerable 
number of young men found here the finest girls they ever saw, 
and afterwards persuaded them to become their companions 
for life. Even those who went from here heart-free, inquire 
on returning in later years for their girl class-mates with as 
keen an interest as for the boys, remembering the comradeship 
in study in which the girls pushed the boys hard for first rank. 
Many are saying today with Dr. Holmes, 

“Where are the Marys and Anns and Elizas 
Known and beloved of yore? 

Look in the columns of old advertisers. 

Married and dead by the score.” 

It was not Meriden that Dr. A. L. Stone of Boston once 
described in a lecture when he pictured a young couple going 
home from singing school of a winter night in a sleigh. Two 
columns of steam issued from their lips in the frosty air, ris¬ 
ing like two pillars of cloud in the wilderness. Gradually these 
approached each other till presently they blended into one. 
Surely that could not have happened in Meriden: it would have 
been too palpable a violation of Rule 20. Yet innocent hearts 
did flutter here sometimes, and lives that began to glow here 
with tender heat were afterwards welded into indissoluble union. 
The 1600 boys who graduated here will never forget the 600 
girls who studied by their side. And the fact that no interrup- 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


49 


tion of thoroughgoing work in the studies was occasioned by 
their working in the same classes has proved here, as it has 
elsewhere, the value of co-education. 

What of the future? Doubtless the historian should be 
chary of indulging in prophecy. But the review of the hundred 
years of struggle and success, of difficulties vanquished and 
achievements won, of equipment steadily increased and a long 
and splendid honor roll of more than two thousand, two hun¬ 
dred graduates who have enriched the life of our country with 
intellectual and spiritual wealth garnered here, compels us to 
anticipate a large and noble work for the Academy in the com¬ 
ing years. Its work is not yet done; it is only well begun. 

The need of this institution is as great today as when it be¬ 
gan a century ago. There are just twice as many people in New 
Hampshire now as there were when Governor Gilman signed 
the charter in 1813. There are twice as many young people on 
the farms and in the towns and villages as there were then. 
And it is twice as important for them to have a good education, 
because of the more complex life and the keener competition of 
our day. While more abundant provision is made for them 
through the improved graded schools and the excellent high 
schools in some localities, multitudes of these young men and 
women cannot obtain this needed education at home or near 
home. Many of them have rich native endowments, but like 
their predecessors of a century ago, they are poor in pocket. 
New England is a very prosperous section of the country, yet 
the millionaires among its hills and valleys are comparatively 
few. The great majority of them are still frugal, thrifty, high- 
minded, hard-working, independent people, whose children 
want an education at moderate cost, but want it of the very 
best. Here is a school in a beauty-spot of the Granite State, 




50 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


amid healthiest surroundings, with the highest intellectual 
standards, and a pure and stimulating Christian atmosphere, 
with a fine equipment of buildings, and a strong faculty of ex¬ 
pert teachers, and the tradition of a hundred years of the best 
kind of work behind it; and it opens its doors wide to all who 
would drink of the spring of knowledge. And hither will 
come flocking, as of yore, hundreds of youth from country¬ 
side and village and town and city, either to be prepared for 
college or university, or to receive that all-round, up-to-date 
academic training that will enable them to make the most of 
life in the home, on the farm, or in business. 

Moreover, a new opportunity opens before the school in 
the wider scope of country life today to which it may minis¬ 
ter. The old isolation is disappearing. Life has broadened 
for those in the rural home. The farmer of today may keep 
in touch with the great world through the telephone; perhaps 
he whirls along the country road in his automobile; his wife 
belongs to a club or two; the latest books and magazines are 
on his table; his boy goes to the State College to learn the latest 
methods of scientific farming; his daughter teaches school a 
term or two and buys a player-piano for the home. The people 
are more neighborly than they used to be. Community life en¬ 
larges, gains in zest and enjoyment, and all the citizens feel 
the thrill and uplift of a new order of things. We have not yet 
begun to realize the full meaning of real community-life, in 
which all the people of a village or township may share more 
fully each other s blessings, and in which the common life pours 
its invigorating and joy-giving tides into each individual life. 
This is the meaning of the new rural movement which is mak¬ 
ing itself felt all over our land. Such an institution as this 
may be a powerful factor in this movement, and we may ex¬ 
pect it to be a more effective instrument for the betterment 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


5i 


of the state and nation in the next hundred years than in the 
century just closed. 

We wish the prophetic eye could see within a year or two 
an electric car-line running through this village from Lebanon 
to Claremont or Windsor, so that this place might be easier of 
access. But whatever the means of locomotion, for the true 
lover of the old school days at Kimball Union Academy, all 
roads lead to Meriden. It is a magnet that draws many a 
veteran back to the scenes of his youth, and as he stands again 
amid the entrancing beauty of this hilltop, and his eye takes 
in once more the rare loveliness of field and forest, of moun¬ 
tain and valley, and as memory with backward glance pictures 
to his mind the teachers and comrades of the brave days of 
old when he was a student here, he devoutly exclaims, “Thank 
God for Kimball Union Academy and all it has accomplished! 
May the blessing of heaven still attend it, and guide it to yet 
larger usefulness in the years to come!” 


THE CENTENNIAL ODE 

A hundred years! 

They sweep before our view 
Soft-hued with mists of tears 
Or bright with memories of days 
That shine like gold. 

No poet’s tongue has told 

The story of those years of high ideals, 

But every loyal son and daughter true 
Of Kimball Union knows her worth, and feels 
The debt they owe her can be paid by few. 

So gladly now they join the gathering throng 





52 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


That come to celebrate her hundredth year. 

And joyously rings out in voices strong 
Her honored name in loyal song and cheer. 

A hundred years! 

On rock-ribbed granite hills 
Small change appears. 

Ascutney’s bulk uprears 
Against the sky, and still it fills 
The outlines of a century ago. 

The students on this hill-top site 
So long ago looked to that distant height 
And knew it as to-day we know. 

They walked these self-same roads, knew just such days 
Of azure sky and drifting, fleecy cloud; 

They looked out o’er these hills with just such gaze 
Of youthful zeal inspired to action proud. 

With all who dwelt here in the years gone by 
We cannot fail to feel a kinship strong; 

Time takes its toll of buildings fair and high, 

And some are gone that on this hill stood long; 

But all who came and went on this old hill, 

Though knowing not our present goodly halls, 

Felt this same vital air, knew the sharp thrill 
Of frosty breath when autumn’s verdure falls, 

And loved the beauty of snow-whitened hill; 

The campus woods, the distant mountain walls, 

Were theirs first, but they are with us still. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


53 


A hundred years! 

The school to-day looks back to early days, 
And finds indeed much change; 

Their books, their rules seem strange, 

They found amusement in such different ways; 

And yet through all the years the same ideal 
Of Christian character still holds its place, 

And now to-day its strong appeal 
Is on the hill, and here we feel 
An impulse lift us from the mean and base 
To rise superior to our low desires, 

To be the thing God saw in that far day 
When first He fashioned man with earthly fires 
But put a God-like soul within the clay. 

Honor be hers, and glory, and renown; 

Her sons and daughters here with loud acclaim 

And one accord extol the glorious name 

Her hundred vanished years have handed down. 

Long live the old school on the hill! 

And when another hundred years are flown, 

And we no longer on this earth are known, 

May honored Kimball Union stand here still! 

Marion Richardson Heath, 

Preceptress 1907-1909 




THE PAGEANT OF MERIDEN 


COMMITTEES OF THE PAGEANT 


The Pageant Committee 

Charles Alden Tracy, Chairman Harold W. Chellis 
William C. Brunei, Secretary Chester H. Sears 
Frank M. Howe, Treasurer Miss Mary A. Freeman 
J. Daniel Porter Miss Abbie S. Chellis 

Herbert E. Wood Mrs. Harold W. Chellis 

John F. Cann 

The Advisory Committee 


Percy MacKaye 
Maxfield Parrish 
Prof. Homer Eaton Keyes 
Mrs. George Rublee 
Pres. Ernest Fox Nichols 
Winston Churchill 
Robert Treat Paine 


Robert Barrett 

Herbert E. Adams 

Louis E. Shipman 

Pres. E. T. Fairchild 

Hon. Henry C. Morrison 

Prof. Herbert Darling Foster 

Prof. Walter Van Dyke Bingham 


THE PAGEANT DIRECTION 

William Chauncy Langdon 
Master of the Pageant 

Arthur Farwell 

Composer and Director of the Music 

Marion Langdon 
Director of the Costuming 

Madeline Randall 
Director of the Dancing 

H. K. Lloyd 
Designer of the Poster 









the classics 



the birds 


















THE HEBREWS 



NATURE SPIRITS 










The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


55 


EPISODES OF THE PAGEANT 

I. Introduction: The Vision of Education 


1 . 

The Settling of Meriden 

1769 

2. 

The Starting of the Church 

1780 

II. 

Interlude: The Classics 


3. 

The Founding of the Academy 

1813 

4. 

The Coming of the Girls 

1840 

5. 

Going to the Civil War 

1861 

6. 

The Height of the Academy 

1867 

III. 

Interlude : Clarence and Reuben 


7. 

The Ebb of the Tide 

1889 

8. 

Back to the Soil 

1899 

IV. Interlude: The Birds 


9. 

The New Academy 

1913 


V. Finale: Education in the New Country Life 


THE PAGEANT OF MERIDEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
Education in the New Country Life 

By William Chauncy Langdon, Master of the Pageant 

The following article by Mr. Langdon, is, in part, reprinted from 
The American City of April, 1914, by courtesy of the editor and with the 
author's permission. 

The complete text of The Pageant of Meriden may be obtained 
from the Secretary of the Pageant Committee, Meriden, N. H. Price, 
thirty cents each postpaid. 

The Pageant of Meriden, New Hampshire, was the third 
of a series of Pageants of the New Country Life, the other two 
being Thetford, Vermont, 1911, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 
1912. These pageants all three, like most of the regular pag- 






56 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


eants, followed the model of Louis N. Parker’s Pageant of 
Sherborne, England, 1905, and were in an important sense his¬ 
torical pageants. But they were more than historical, for the 
drama of the community was carried down to the present and 
on into the future to reflect in advance the gleam of those ideal 
conditions which the New Country Life movement is so suc¬ 
cessfully bringing to realization. As these new conditions make 
the near future by far the most important period in the history 
of these towns, so accordingly in the pageant-drama the his¬ 
torical incidents for all the episodes of the past are selected 
with a view to their suggestive foretelling of this ideal future, 
and all the dramatic and artistic treatment is focussed so as to 
lead up to it and glorify it. 

Meriden is a village of about two hundred inhabitants, 
twelve miles back from the Connecticut River at Cornish. Kim¬ 
ball Union Academy is located there and adds two hundred 
more to the population. During its one hundred years, the 
Academy has at all times held a respected and often eminent po¬ 
sition among country academies. At present it is of more than 
usual importance, for the reason that as a matter of definite 
policy, it has given itself to working out the true function of 
education in the new country life of America. This cannot be 
too strongly stated. By action of the Trustees and by the ad¬ 
ministrative and pedagogical practice of the Principal, Charles 
Alden Tracy, and the faculty, the Academy is intent upon the 
purpose that the education there offered to the young people of 
the surrounding agricultural region shall really prepare them 
for the life they are going to lead and train them to make of 
the life of the farm a high source of joy, culture and inspira¬ 
tion for fine citizenship. This is the theme of the pageant, re¬ 
produced from the actual facts in the past and present life of 
this New Hampshire town and its academy, and expressed by 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


57 


means of all the contributory arts of drama, music, color, and mo¬ 
tion in accordance with the strictest technical laws of the new 
out-door art of pageantry. 

The pageant grounds were on the side of a hill, looking 
across a valley to the hill-top on which stand Meriden and the 
Academy, and to the lofty height of Ascutney rising beyond. 
The grounds are on a farm recently given to the Academy for 
its agricultural laboratory by Mr. Alfred S. Hall of Boston, in 
memory of his son, and so called the Francis C. Hall Memo¬ 
rial Farm. The grandstand was erected near the top of the 
hill, and the grounds where the scenes transpired sloped down 
into a thick growth of small pines, over the tops of which was 
seen the village, which was the hero of the pageant. 

Life is a crystallization of feeling. So it is becoming more 
and more clear that in the pageant-drama music must be used 
as a unit, not merely incidentally, to express the underlying feel¬ 
ing that runs through all community life as well as individual 
life, and to emphasize the unity of that community develop¬ 
ment by re-enforcing the unity in the pageant-drama. In a 
word, the growing understanding of the pageant as an art-form 
reveals it not simply as community drama, but as community 
music drama. So used, music contributes to the needed flow of 
unity in the series of episodes without interfering with the sep¬ 
arate articulateness of the successive generations in their dis¬ 
tinct episodes. In this way it was used in the Pageant of Mer¬ 
iden, the music of which, composed by Arthur Farwell, entered 
essentially into the pageant unity. 

The pageant began with the sounding in the orchestra of the 
broad, strong motif of Education. Immediately the music 
changed to the wild, unrestrained whirl of the Nature Spirits, 
who swept out of the woods on either side and danced in un¬ 
trammeled ecstacy, back and forth in the glade. Then to a 




5» The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


motif founded on an old Puritan hymn tune in the brass, while 
the Nature Spirit music continues in the strings and woodwind, 
there appears a group of pioneers with their families, toiling up 
the hill. They are twice driven back by the frenzied Nature 
Spirits, but the third time, Education, a strong and virile young 
man, leads them. He makes a way for them, and following at 
last they reach the top, where turning they behold the vision of 
Meriden and the Academy on the hill opposite, the present 
realization of their dreams for the future. So in ecstasy, lift¬ 
ing up their hands, they burst forth into The Song of the Vis¬ 
ion : 

Joy! Joy revealed ! Behold the glory of far-off years ! 

Towering mountain, bear our wearied spirits to the skies! 

See! See the vision! So at last in spite of fears 

God shall crown the harvest hill! Let songs of joy arise! 

After this Introduction, the first of the nine realistic epi¬ 
sodes represents The Settling of Meriden in 1769 by the 
Scotchman, Benjamin Kimball, his American wife, and fifteen 
year old son, Daniel. They have come with the Agent of the 
Proprietors to look over the land. Incidental to the father’s 
canny bargaining with the agent, is seen his shrewd, kindly 
training of the boy, inculcating habits of piety, economy, and 
self-reliance. The lad shoots a rabbit for the dinner in the 
woods. The father criticizes: “A charge of powder for a rab¬ 
bit,—yon is na eneuch return, Daniel. You mecht hae snared 
it. Look gin ye can find the bullet in him. Sae, ye’ll get the 
lead back”. To the mother’s protest he rejoins: “The lad will 
ne’er dae weel in this country gin he’s aye gieing mair than he’s 
getting”,, and with the final admonition: “Aye squint a business 
eye on wha’ you’re shooting”, he lifts the camp kettle off the 
fire and gathers his family around it. “We’ll say grace. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


59 


A’mighty Faither, gie us our food the day, and teach us aye tae 
remember ye and tae be gratefu’ tae ye. Amen.” Pioneer edu¬ 
cation had two points of advantage over the education of the 
present day: it really prepared the young people for the life 
they were going to lead, and it kept the family together. The 
essential note of the Academy in its new life was sounded in 
this episode of the first settler and his young son. 

The Starting of the Church in 1780 was the next incident 
of causal importance to demand representation in the pageant. 
The old record says that “The Church of Christ in the Eastern 
part of Plainfield was gathered in the presence of the Rev. 
Isaiah Potter of Lebanon. And Ruth Pool was baptized when 
the church was gathered”. So the little community gathered 
together to meet the Lebanon parson, who came over the trail 
on horseback. The singing of one or two of the old hymns, 
such as “Sure there’s a righteous God”, to the tune of Here¬ 
ford, and “The Lord my pasture will prepare”, composed by 
Dr. Arne, with instrumental accompaniment of one clarinet, 
made a fine contrast, quaint but rich, to the music of the pres¬ 
ent. The high and devout standard of life in the first days of 
the town, albeit somewhat contentious, was depicted in this 
scene. The educational aspect of the religious interest was 
brought out in the minister’s examination of Ruth Pool, before 
'accepting her for baptism. He asks her how she came to de¬ 
sire to be baptised, and she replies, “I heard the Rev. Samuel 
Wood preach last winter. I felt my sinfulness, and desired to 
live the better life, and to help my neighbors to live the better 
life, and so to gain to Heaven”. To the question, “Have you 
been taught in the Christian truths?” she answers, “I have”; 
and the others testify, “She has”. The minister inquires, “By 
whom?” “By the neighbors”, is the girl’s response, which 





6o 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


brings to them the commendation, “So may your good teaching 
of this lamb of the Good Shepherd stand out in His eyes be¬ 
fore your pride of heart”. The last fatherly touch is given by 
old Benjamin Kimball, now getting along in years, inviting his 
neighbors to use his home as a meeting house, “We can a’ come 
ben in ma ain hoose, richt handy here, as the Lord himsel’ and 
his disciples came together in an upper room. And there the 
lassie can be taen into the flock of the Guid Shepherd. Ruth, 
lassie, walk wi’ the meenister. You’re a bonnie bairn, and you 
wi’ noo be christened.” 

The first interlude, called The Classics, set forth with ac¬ 
tion, dance, and orchestral music, the character of early 
nineteenth century culture. In the vicinity of Meriden it was 
about 1805 that the hardships of settling had been overcome 
sufficiently to give some leisure. With leisure came the oppor¬ 
tunity to use it for good or for ill. With virile, rustic music, 
a number of farm and forest people come in engaged in their 
work. Gradually they stop their industrious occupations, one 
by one, and sit or recline on the grass. Idleness, a taking young 
person, in soft, pink draperies, impersonated by Miss Madeline 
Randall, comes out of the woods and dances for them, much to 
their delight. She persuades some of the young people also to 
dance, and quickly a quarrel arises, interrupted by the appear¬ 
ance of the minister. He stops the disorder and banishes the 
graceful, but shameless Idleness. He reads to his people from 
two large books, Latin Literature and the Old Testament, while 
before their rapt, admiring imaginations pass first a group of 
Romans, Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil,—and then a group of He¬ 
brews^—Moses, David, and Isaiah, the music being based re¬ 
spectively on a bold military march, and on a glorious old Jew¬ 
ish hymn. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


6i 


Inspired by an inherited Scotch appreciation of such clas¬ 
sical culture, Daniel Kimball, the fifteen-year-old son of Ben¬ 
jamin Kimball in the first episode, now fifty-nine, founded the 
Academy, by offering to the Council of the Churches meeting 
at Windsor, Vermont, $6,000 at once and all his estate at death, 
if they would locate their projected academy at his village. The 
episode of The Founding of the Academy in 1813, represents 
Daniel Kimball as he is about to set out from Meriden to ride 
down to Windsor. His personal eccentricities, brought out in 
his relations with his most suitable wife, and with the young 
doctor, whom he suspects of being a Democrat, and his nobler 
qualities as well, were found delightfully recorded in the graphic 
diary of the young doctor, which was lent by his daughter, 
Miss Mary Frost, now an old lady of 95 years. But brusque, 
arbitrary, and domineering to an absurd extent as he was, Dan¬ 
iel Kimball was at the same time also, a practical, large-natured, 
and generous man. Childless, he had a hungry yearning for 
young people, and so hailed with emphatic approval, the sug¬ 
gestion of President Dwight of Yale, that the Council establish 
not a divinity school, but an academy. As he starts off, he 
lingers to say to his wife, “The young people! And sound 
learning! They shall be our children, and have our lands and 
our home forever!” He rides off, but turns in his saddle at 
the edge of the woods and calls back, “When I come back, 
Hannah, I shall bring the Academy with me!” 

Twenty-seven years later, Mrs. Daniel Kimball, then a 
widow, increased the endowment of the Academy in order to 
provide for the extension of its opportunities to girls. The 
Coming of the Girls in 1840 was, therefore, the next event to 
be depicted in the pageant. The stage coach arrives, loaded high 
with its young burden before the eager eyes of the aged bene¬ 
factress, while the young principal, Cyrus S. Richards, destined 




62 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


to hold that position for 36 years, restrained first the prejudices 
and then the enthusiasm of the boy students. Dr. Frost is still 
by Mrs. Kimball’s side, her confidential friend and adviser; 
otherwise, those of the old days are all gone. She does not re¬ 
gard her gift as a benefaction. It came from a feeling that 
she and her husband had shared. So when Mr. Richards says 
to her that the coming of the girls will be the beginning of a 
new success for the Academy, and that they will all be greatly 
indebted to her, she replies, “Yes,—yes. But,—they are my 
children,” and looks at Dr. Frost. He understands. Then Mr. 
Richards, having already admonished the students that they 
will not be allowed to meet and converse on the street or else¬ 
where, but that they will meet once a day, for morning or 
evening devotion, dismisses them, and in words taken from his 
report to the Trustees, comments to Mrs. Kimball, “The at¬ 
mosphere of cheerfulness seems already to be spreading over 
our little community.” 

When the Civil War came, a good number of students 
at the Academy enlisted and went to the front. The girls made 
a flag and presented it to their fellow-students when they left. 
This was represented with a family group. The student who 
goes to the front is the son of a Meriden family, and the family 
are leaving the house to go up with him to join the other stu¬ 
dents on the campus. His sister, also a student, is one of the 
girls who have made the flag, and she is carrying it up with 
her for the presentation. So the episode emphasized the inti¬ 
mate family aspect of the universal parting. Father, mother, 
son, sister, small boy, brother, who does not realize the serious¬ 
ness of the occasion, and the grandmother, she who knows the 
sorrows of life, say their quiet, brief farewells, and go up to 
the campus, all but the mother. She watches them out of sight, 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 63 


waving to her boy as he goes. America, her robes torn and 
blood-stained, comes out from the trees behind her and stretches 
out her arms in sympathy to her. The music at the top of the 
hill plays The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The mother turns 
and sees America and sinks at her feet. The music continues, 
more and more softly as if receding. America leads the 
mother back into her home. The music plays on,—“Mine eyes 
have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! ,, 

In 1867, when Dr. Richards had for thirty-two years been 
Principal, the Academy reached the height of its prosperity 
under the classical tradition. Commencement Day of that year 
afforded the incidents for this episode, The Height of the Acad¬ 
emy. The students are waiting for the exercises of the day 
to begin, some of them playing the new game, baseball. On 
the approach of the Principal, to whom they gave, in those 
days, the name of “the little gentleman in black,” one of them 
proposes that they sing their class ode for him. Gratified by 
their compliment, Dr. Richards responded with a speech, which 
was taken largely from his own writings, and which was ren¬ 
dered very effective by the remarkable delineation of the char¬ 
acter of the old-time Principal, by one of the present teachers, 
Mr. Frank M. Howe. Curious to our ears sound the words of 
gentle enthusiasm, the very essence of the classical culture (his 
own words), which he addressed to them: “America looks to 
her educated men and women for leadership. Let her not be 
disappointed of us. There is no training for life equal to the 
mental discipline of the great classics of Greece and Rome. I 
have noticed over and over again at times when the Divine 
Spirit has poured out His refreshing grace, the remarkable fea¬ 
ture, that a very large majority of those who were hopefully the 
subjects of Grace belonged to the Classical Department.” There 




64 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


is always something of the pathetic in success and the height of 
prosperity, a fact that is not always recognized. So the Prin¬ 
cipal goes on to refer to the causes which were soon to bring 
the Academy’s fortunes down into hardship, the new public 
high schools springing up in the towns round about, and the 
great development of the cities and of the west, drawing heav¬ 
ily on the farm districts of New England for fresh blood. Then 
himself one with his Academy, he voices the same feeling in 
regard to his own labors, the personal echoing the institutional: 

“I have so far given thirty-two years of my life to this in¬ 
stitution. It cannot be that I am to remain very much longer. 
I offered my resignation to the Trustees at their meeting yes¬ 
terday, but they very generously urged me to withdraw it. 
(Cheers from the students) I have done so. (Cheers) Soon, 
however, there will come a graduating class with which I, too! 
will pass on. We must all leave the scenes of our best toil and 
finest joy. But, young ladies and gentlemen, let us not forget 
them! God bless you !” 

The words for the Class Ode here used were from that of 
the Class of 1870, written by Miss Etta E. Boothe, and they 
were set to music by Miss Mary Hoyt, of the Class of 1915. 

Thus, in successive episodes, were shown at a sweep, the 
founding, the extension, the sacrifice, and the prosperity of the 
Academy and its village. Before the pageant went on to re¬ 
member the low period of the Academy’s fortunes, when from 
two hundred and twenty, its student roll went down to twenty- 
four, there came an interlude, Clarence and Reuben, illustrating 
with humorous symbolism, the economic conditions in the coun¬ 
try at large, that accompanied, or that caused the depletion of 
the agricultural districts, and of the old country academies so 
intimately associated with them. To orchestral music based 
on southern cracker tunes and original rag-time with an occa¬ 
sional touch of Yankee Doodle and Dixie, which might be de¬ 
scribed as an Americanesque, Uncle Sam and his two sons, 
Clarence, the city son, with his wife and two children, and 











THE PEOPLE OF MERIDEN SAVED FROM IDLENESS 









THE GENERATIONS KNEELING BEFORE THE ALTAR 










The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 65 


Reuben, the country son, with his wife and ten children, act 
out a pantomime wherein Clarence is always prospering in the 
favor of the genial Uncle Sam, at the expense of Reuben, al¬ 
though there is, at the end, some realization on the part of 
both Uncle Sam and Clarence, of the inherent dignity and no¬ 
bility of the country brother. 

Then the low point, which is also always the point of rise, 
The Ebb of the Tide, showing the conditions in the spring of 
1889. Along the woodland road comes a wagon, drawn by a 
pretty lean horse, and driven by a farmer, spare and rugged, 
of keen eye, but dispirited manner. With him is his wife, and 
in behind, with a bundle of clothes and a few books, is a boy 
of about sixteen. They have saved up money, little by little, 
and they want their son to have schooling at the Academy. 
Inquiry of the principal and one of the teachers reveals the 
fact, however, that, as the boy has no intention of going into 
the ministry, he is not eligible for a scholarship, and the money 
saved is not, otherwise, nearly enough to pay the cost for the 
year. In bitter, silent disappointment, the father says, “Guess 
we might as well get right back home, Sarah. Come on, Jim. 
Get in. It ain’t no use taking the gentleman’s time.” He turns 
the horse around and starts to drive off. The principal, how¬ 
ever, calls them back, draws from them the story of their strug¬ 
gle in the hard times, their ambition for the boy, and their de¬ 
sire to see him before they die “bringing up his family without 
dreading the interest every three months,—enjoying life.” The 
boy shows the right spirit, and so the principal tells them that 
there is under consideration, a plan whereby a student may re¬ 
ceive full tuition and home for a single payment of $100, and 
an hour a day spent in work about the Academy. The boy is 
taken in on this plan. This "$100 Plan,” as it was called, was 




66 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


much more than a wise financial scheme whereby the Academy 
was enabled to attract students to its halls, and secure cash to 
strengthen its position at a time when the closing of its doors 
seemed inevitable. It was the introduction of practical agricul¬ 
tural and domestic economy into the curriculum, and the recog¬ 
nition of proficiency in these country life essentials as worthy 
of respect and honor equally with Greek and Latin. From the 
depths of this ebb-tide period sprang the beginnings of a New 
Education for the New Country Life of the present. 

Especially with this episode I like to associate the poem 
“School,” which Percy MacKaye wrote for the 100th Anniver¬ 
sary Exercises of the Academy, when the pageant was per¬ 
formed.* There is one stanza which finely sets forth the rich¬ 
ness of the country material, that waits ready for the guidance 
of a true education. 

“Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, 

Stood bursting—like a ripe seed—into soul. 

All his life long he had watched the great hills roll 
Their shadows, tints and sheens 
By sun- and moon-rise; yet the bane of hoeing beans 
And round of daily chores, his father’s toll, 

Blotted their beauty; nature was as not: 

He had never thought!’ 

The next episode, Back to the Soil, reproduced the first 
Old Home Day in 1899, and the reviving pride in the past, 
and love of the old farm which it betokened,—harbingers of the 
new country life. In this episode, many of the people who 
took part had been present at the first Old Home Day itself 
in a word, took their own parts. The episode was largely 

*The entire poem, School, is printed elsewhere in this volume. 








The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 67 


made up of the glad hand of welcome to returning friends, 
and the reminiscent gossip of old comrades, the spirit of neigh¬ 
borly companionship coming to a climax, so far as the pageant 
was concerned, with the awarding of a “beautifully frosted and 
decorated cake” (again) to the oldest child of Meriden, John 
Hall Calif, from birth ninety-four years in residence, who was 
this time present by proxy, and the adjournment to the Town 
Hall for further exercises. 

The intensive meaning of the pageant was expressed in 
the next scene, the interlude of The Birds. It may be noted 
that the first crop that Meriden and the Academy reaped 
from its new farm was not a crop of corn or of hay 
or of potatoes, but of the beauty and joyous inspiration of their 
pageant. Enthusiastically following the guidance of Ernest 
Harold Baynes, the naturalist, who lives there, the people of 
Meriden have made their village a veritable winter and sum¬ 
mer resort for birds. As the local paper expresses it, Meriden 
is unmistakably “The Bird Village.” Here is the “Sanctuary” 
for which Percy MacKaye wrote his Bird-Masque. What is 
culture, what is education if it does not lead to the joyous life? 
With this interlude the pageant took wing into its own proper 
idealism. 

An old teacher and one of his former pupils remain from 
the Old Home Day. He laments the disappointment of his hope 
that the Academy might be a centre of education in the higher 
sense of art and culture. The younger man goes off, and the 
old teacher lies down on the grass to read, as he has so often 
done before, and soon goes to sleep. The music of the orches¬ 
tra quietly steals in with dream chords. From out of the woods 
near the orchestra, comes Music, a youthful figure in violet and 





68 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


blue, expectant, listening. Deep in the woods is heard the mel¬ 
ancholy note of the Wood Pewee. Music smiles. A Song 
Sparrow flits across the glade, lifts up its head and sings its 
cheerful, every-day, road-side song. Then other birds dart in 
and out among the small trees, while the orchestra plays a little 
bird-song symphonic fantasia, made of their songs over the 
quiet dream chords. Silence, and from the deep of the woods 
comes alone the jubilant life-song of the Hermit Thrush. 
Again! All the birds join in chorus, as the orchestra plays 
what is really a Hermit Thrush concerto, richer, more trium¬ 
phant than before, the even-song of the birds. It comes to a 
close. The birds disappear among the trees to nest. The little 
Song Sparrow flits back into the bushes. Again there is silence, 
except for the dream chords. Last, once more the song of the 
Hermit Thrush and the note of the Pewee, companions of the 
deep woods, and of life. The dream chords cease. The old 
teacher wakes up. To his returning young friend, he says that 
he fell asleep and dreamed that the birds were singing all 
around him, and that he felt that his dream and his hopes 
would come true. The birds were little children costumed— 
rather embodied into bird-form by Marion Langdon, who de¬ 
signed all the costumes of the pageant. 


So at last to the realistic idealism of the present! The 
New Education was an episode made of the student life of 
the Academy here and there, carried forward into the future 
a little, so far as could be done with fidelity, to actual advances 
already begun toward the ideals of the Academy. With scenes 
and incidents of athletics, of farm work for boys and girls, the 
excitement of a baseball victory over a neighboring academy, 
the erection of a new martin pole on the hill, an out-door Latin 
recitation, a test in judging cattle, and a round of folk-dancing, 





The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 69 


the picture of life at Kimball Union Academy as it is, unfolded 
itself. Through it all the Principal, (Mr. Tracy himself) brings 
a visitor, showing him the new farm, and explaining to him the 
work and methods and purposes of the Academy. In reply to 
the visitor’s inquiry about the purpose of the farm to help stu¬ 
dents work out part of their expenses and to raise food for 
the Academy, the Principal replies, (quoting words he used on 
a similar occasion) : 

“Yes, partly that is the purpose, but only incidentally. 
The culture that the soil gives the man through the culture 
that the man gives the soil. That is what we are after.” 

To an assertion of the all-sufficiency of the classical education 
without agriculture, he rejoins: 

“So far as that goes, there is a class in Latin down there. 
You will find more real appreciation of Virgil in any one of 
those boys and girls than in the average college freshman,—or 
senior. They get it from their farm work. Virgil was a farm¬ 
er.” 

So, too, later he sums up the relation of the village and the 
Academy in their common life, with the truth as it is believed 
and practiced in Meriden: 

“The whole life of this town is education, and it is—or 
we are trying to make it—one big family. Education is a com¬ 
munity playing its part as a parent to its young people. How 
can we have any real education if the parents do not come into 
it? The parent is a teacher, and the teacher is a—minor parent. 
Education is a thing of the whole community. 

The church bell begins to ring over on the hill-top across 
the valley. In vein of sentiment the Principal continues: 

“Here in the shade of these green pines I like to think I 
see the vision of Education as a living person, at the sound of 
that bell gathering together all the generations of Meriden, 
from that first pioneer mother and father and their boy to these 
students of mine.—Hush! See!” 




70 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


The orchestra very softly begins to play as though from far 
away, The Song of the Vision. From the pine trees at the 
foot of the hill, emerges Education. He gathers rough field 
stones and builds an altar. From the pines all around him 
come the Nature Spirits, and stand swaying in the summer 
breeze. Music and the birds join them. Directly behind the 
altar, through the branches, comes the Pioneer Mother with 
her fifteen-year-old boy. She builds a fire on the altar. From 
one side comes one representing the Village of Meriden, and 
from the other side, one representing the Academy. The Civil 
War Mother and the Ebb-Tide Mother come and add fuel 
to the fire. Then at the command of Education from over the 
hill on both sides, come all the people of all the generations 
of Meriden, singing as they pour in, a pageant hymn composed 
into a fine broad chorus. 

Come from all the ages! Swell the joyous throng! 

Start the echoes ringing with the burden of your song! 

Greet the dawning future with paeons of the strong! 

Hail the dauntless settler, mighty to endure! 

Hail the sacrifices war and death found pure! 

Hail the struggle upward of the toiler and the poor! 

America, attended by New Hampshire, appears, acclaimed by 
all the people of the pageant in a hymn beginning 

All hail! Imperial Spirit, 

Whose love broods o’er the land, 

And watches o’er the people 

From ocean strand to strand! 
























The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


71 


America takes her place behind the altar. Spreading her arms 
as the priestess of the nation, she bids all the people of the 
generations kneel, and leads them in singing the last, the prayer 
stanza of “America.” Then rising, the pageant marches out, 
in review, past America and the symbolic group, and wind their 
way in massy column far down the woodland road, singing 
as they go The Recessional Song of Meriden: 


Sing the song with care-free heart,— 
Sing the song with bitter soul,— 
By the one way, where roads part, 
Pressing onward to the goal! 

Up the hill that Toil has crowned, 
Down the pathway Peace has found, 

Sing the joys and griefs of men! 
Sing the Song of Meriden! 


THE MUSIC OF THE PAGEANT 

By Arthur Farwell 

This article by Mr. Arthur Farwell, composer of the music 
for the Pageant of Meriden, is used by permission of the au¬ 
thor and by courtesy of Musical America , in which magazine 
it appeared, July 12, 1913. 

The two performances of the pageant of Meriden, N. H., 
took place under the happiest imaginable auspices on the after¬ 
noons of June 24 and 25, on the pageant grounds, which were 
a hillside overlooking the little town of Meriden, with its Acad¬ 
emy, from a distance, about two-thirds of a mile away. The 







72 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


event was the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Kim¬ 
ball Union Academy, and the pageant was sub-titled, “Educa¬ 
tion in the New Country Life.” 

William Chauncy Langdon and myself have been studying 
the question of the pageant, with relation to music for some 
time, and this was our first opportunity to give concrete and 
untrammeled expression to our ideas upon the matter. 

The town of Meriden consists chiefly of its Academy. It 
is situated on the hilltop, and lies about midway between Cor¬ 
nish and Lebanon, N. H., and is eight miles from its nearest 
railroad or trolley. This latter fact made its transportation of 
visitors a very difficult problem. In one direction lies Mt. 
Ascutney, some fifteen miles away, and in every other direc¬ 
tion there are hills similar to the one on which Meriden is 
situated. By placing the pageant field upon a hillside in the 
opposite direction from the town, from that in which Ascutney 
lies it was possible to make the prospect from the grandstand 
include simultaneously the pageant ground in the immediate 
foreground, backed by clumps of low, white pines and firs. 
Meriden, on its hilltop, in the middle distance, and Mt. Ascut¬ 
ney far beyond. The grandstand was built to hold 2000 people 
and the orchestra stand was backed into the trees on the left 
of the pageant stage, with its reflecting back and top so ar¬ 
ranged as to throw most of the sound to the audience, while 
also allowing it to be sufficiently well heard on the stage. 

The greatest difficulty to meet in connection with the pa¬ 
geant ground, was that the stage continued to go down hill 
from the foot of the grandstand, instead of being level, or be¬ 
ing upon an opposite slope facing the grandstand, as is more 
often the case. The ground did flatten out somewhat at a little 
distance from the grandstand, and in front of the trees. Mr. 
Langdon, however, made ingenious use of the hill in various 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


73 


ways in working out the dramatic action. The chief eventual 
difficulty with the slope was with the dancing, which, however, 
under Madeline Randall’s direction, was worked out very suc¬ 
cessfully and beautifully. 

The pageant itself consisted of nine historical episodes, in¬ 
volving music only in an incidental historical way, and five 
scenes of a lyrical and symbolistic nature, enacted in pantomime 
with orchestral music throughout, and occasionally with chorus. 
All the music of these five scenes was composed by myself. 
The history of Meriden is the history of its Academy, which 
has passed through many vicissitudes, and has exerted a broad 
educational influence. Immensely successful about the war 
time, its fortunes fell off at a later period with the degenera¬ 
tion of New England farm life. With the regeneration of the 
latter, and under the strong leadership of Charles Alden Tracy, 
principal of the Academy, it has entered a new condition of 
prosperity. The pageant was due to the initiative of Mr. Tracy. 

The problems set the composer by Mr. Langdon were of 
the most engaging sort. For example, the first of the musical 
scenes presents a horde of wild nature spirits, clad in skins, 
emerging from the trees in a wild dance, the orchestra, hav¬ 
ing first preluded with a few bars of the “Hymn of the Vision”, 
which occurs at the conclusion of the scene. A group of Puri¬ 
tan pioneers, men, women and children, enter at the foot of the 
stage and try to make their way up the slope against these spir¬ 
its, who represent the wild and severe nature aspect of New 
England, so difficult of conquest by the early settlers. The pio¬ 
neers are several times driven back, but finally, led by Educa¬ 
tion, a virile youth in classic raiment, they prevail against the 
nature spirits, and win to the highest point of the stage, where 
they turn and behold the completed Academy, the vision of the 





74 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


future, on the hilltop across the valley. The chorus bursts into 
the “Hymn of the Vision,” at the close of which the pioneers 
make their exit processionally, while the nature spirits retire 
into the woods. 

The chorus was composed in part of those upon the stage, 
and in part of a group of singers massed in front of the or¬ 
chestra stand. At the entrance of the pioneers, an old Puritan 
hymn tune is introduced in the brass and bass of the orchestra, 
as a sort of cantus firmus, above which the wild dissonantal 
dance music continues, rising to a series of climaxes, as the 
nature spirits repulse the pioneers. After a momentary tri¬ 
umph of the former, the music presents the arduous toiling of 
the pioneers up the hillside, led by Education, in which the 
rhythm of the dance is still discernible, up to the outburst in 
the “Hymn of the Vision.” 

The second of the musical scenes involves even a more 
elaborate program. It represents a later period, in which the 
farmers and country folk have become prosperous, and have 
even won a little leisure. A large group enters merrily with 
various implements of trade, the blacksmith with his anvil and 
hammer, the ox-driver with his team, women with their spin- 
ning-wheels, and so on. The music is of a jubilant and festive 
nature. There now appears the figure of Idleness, in filmy 
draperies, dancing and luring men away from their work. At 
first, expressing disapproval, the onlookers at last become in¬ 
terested. Her dance concludes, and she induces the country 
folk themselves to dance, at first two or three, and later most 
of them. The dance degenerates into a riot when two men at¬ 
tempt to get the same girl for a partner. 

In the midst of the broil the minister enters. He quells 
the riot and shows the people two large tomes. These are “The 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


75 


Classics , that being the title of this interlude. The music, 
which has followed the dramatic sequence of the episode, rises 
in a great wave of sound as the minister reads from the first 
book. The present is brushed away. Julius Caesar, Virgil, and 
Cicero enter through a vista and pass across the pageant stage 
to martial music. The minister then reads from the other book 
to a second wave of sound, and there appear the Hebrew proph¬ 
ets, Moses, David, and Isaiah, to the broad music of an old 
Jewish hymn. The processional exit of all on the stage is made 
to the music of the entrance, now dignified to a stately rhythm. 

The best musical opportunity of all, as well as the most 
difficult, was the fourth musical scene, “The Birds”. Meriden 
is the center of bird conservation in America; its bird club, led 
by the naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, having exerted a 
broad influence on bird preservation in America. This scene 
is opened by a teacher who musingly expresses his hopes for 
the future of art and culture, especially music, at the Academy. 
He finds the spot pleasant and sleeps. Music in violet draperies 
appears from the woods and invokes the birds. First, the wood 
pewee is heard, then the notes of the song sparrow. 

Little children cleverly costumed as the particular birds in 
question flit in and out among the trees. In a moment of hush 
the exuberant note of the hermit thrush is heard. Finally, 
all the birds join in, the various notes blending symphonically 
in a riot of bird melody. The birds disperse, last of all the 
wood pewee, whose plaintive note dies away in the last bars of 
the music. The whole scheme of the bird music is supported 
upon an undercurrent of “dream chords” with which the music 
began as the teacher lay down on the grass to sleep. In this 
music I avoided like poison everything that could possibly sa¬ 
vor of the “Waldweben” in “Siegfried”. 






76 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


The finale sums up all the generations of the preceding 
historical episodes, and concerns itself with an altar fire built 
by Education, to which the various mothers of the pageant ep¬ 
isodes contribute sacrificial offerings for the education of the 
future generations. The music reviews the “Hymn of the 
Vision”, accompanies the building of the fire (again sedulously 
avoiding Wagner), reviews Music and the Birds, passes 
through a section representing the passion of motherhood, and, 
with the assembling of all the generations of the pageant pre¬ 
sents a series of choruses; the “Song of the Generations”, the 
“Song of Acclaim to America”, which is sung upon the en¬ 
trance of America with the flag; “America” led by America, 
and the “Recessional Song of Meriden”. 

The character of Music was taken by Madeline Randall, 
whose work was particularly beautiful in this as well as in the 
various solo dances. The costumes by Marion Langdon were 
admirable. H. K. Lloyd, of Claremont, N. H., designed he 
excellent poster for the pageant. 

The book represents high-water mark for Mr. Langdon, 
who is president of the American Pageant Association, and our 
foremost pageant writer and master. 

The orchestra was Nevers’, Blaisdell’s and Stewartson’s or¬ 
chestra of Concord, N. H., with Edgar M. Quint, concert- 
master. While it numbered but seventeen players the acous¬ 
tic arrangements were so successful that every note sounded 
clear and plain in every section of the grandstand, and no ef¬ 
fect of the music had to be strained for. I had but two op¬ 
portunities to rehearse the orchestra before the pageant, but 
it did splendidly with this mass of new music, a good deal of 
it of considerable difficulty. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


77 


The experiment at Meriden, with its successful outcome, 
convinces me more than ever that there is a tremendous field 
for the development of American music in this form. The 
problems presented are so fresh and new that the effect upon 
the composer is revivifying after experiences with the conven¬ 
tional concert life of our cities. Moreover, there is nothing to 
prevent the casting of the dramatic scenes in such form that 
the music written for them shall have permanent concert value, 
that is, if it is good music in the first place. 

The weather was perfect on the days of the pageant, and 
the audience included a great number of automobile parties 
from all parts of New England, as well as the Old Home 
Week visitors to Meriden, and many of the visitors at the Dart¬ 
mouth commencement exercises, fourteen miles away. 


SONGS FROM THE PAGEANT 

THE SONG OF THE VISION 

(From the Introduction: The Vision of Education.) 

Joy! Joy revealed! Behold the glory of far-off years! 

Towering mountain, bear our wearied spirits to the skies! 
See! See the vision! So at last in spite of fears 

God shall crown the harvest hill! Let songs of joy arise! 

Sing! Raise the hymn! Through joy and dauntless hope we 

know! 

Faith reveals far heights of life our eyes can never see! 
Sing' O’er the fields of labor spreads the heavenly glow! 
Vision born of hope and toil! Light of the days to be! 





78 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


THE SONG OF ACCLAIM TO AMERICA 

(This song and the two following are from The Finale : Edu¬ 
cation in the New Country Life) 

All hail! Imperial Spirit, 

Whose love broods o’er the land, 

And watches o’er the peoples 

From ocean strand to strand! 

In peace—inspiring Teacher; 

Protector—in the gale ! 

America triumphant! 

All hail! All hail! All hail! 

THE SONG OF THE GENERATIONS 

Come from all the ages! Swell the joyous throng! 

Start the echoes ringing with the burden of your song! 

Greet the dawning future with paeons of the strong! 

Hail the dauntless settler, mighty to endure! 

Hail the sacrifices war and death found pure! 

Hail the struggle upward of the toiler and the poor! 

Long as hills reecho to hopeful heart and hand, 

Long as grain shall ripen or towering mountain stand, 

Shall the song of joy arise o’er all the toiling land! 





The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


79 


THE RECESSIONAL SONG OF MERIDEN 

Sing the song with care-free heart,— 

Sing the song with bitter soul,— 

By the one way, where roads part, 

Pressing onward to the goal! 

Up the hill that Toil has crowned, 

Down the pathway Peace has found, 

Sing the joys and griefs of men! 

Sing the Song of Meriden! 

Sing the song from youth to age! 

Old Age, still its joys intone! 

When in crowds our strength we guage, 
When we fight our way alone,— 

By the cradle, by the grave, 

On the mountain, on the wave, 

Sing the joys and griefs of men! 

Sing the Song of Meriden! 




THE CLASS REUNIONS 


The days of centennial week were so completely filled with 
memorable gatherings and impressive ceremonies, that it is dif¬ 
ficult, if not impossible, to pass a clear judgment upon the com¬ 
parative significance of any single event of the celebration. 
Yet, I am sure that the Alumni, who were in Meriden on Tues¬ 
day evening, are now regarding with particular delight the little 
gatherings which then took place. 

To be sure, the whole week was one grand reunion. The 
voice of greeting was heard everywhere all of those days, and 
the houses of Meriden were ringing with laughter over the tell¬ 
ing of old-time tales. But on this particular evening, an hour 
had been set apart especially for the gathering of those, who, 
in by-gone days, used to work together at the old Academy, 
who lived their lives there united by that eternal bond of fel¬ 
lowship, class loyalty. 

It was too warm to think of indoor meetings. And so, 
on verandas, on private grounds, and at different places on 
the church lawn, under the starry heavens, on the old hilltop, 
so dear to them all, the little groups gathered, and for an hour 
or more lived over again the good old days. 

Class lines were not very firmly drawn, for in several cases, 
where only a few of the members of a class were present, 
groups were formed, composed of representatives of two or 
three classes, who were in school at nearly the same time. The 
writer was present in one such group, and feels that it may be 
assumed that the spirit shown there was fairly typical of that 
which prevailed in all. Acquaintances were renewed at the 
point where graduation day had temporarily severed them. 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


8i 


There was the usual amount of talk about old times, but there 
was also a very deep and sincere expression of hope and con¬ 
fidence in the future of the grand old institution, within whose 
doors these precious friendships had been formed. 

Gradually the circles broke up into smaller groups, repre¬ 
senting the closer friendships of student days. But the hour 
was very late when these friends separated for the night. The 
spot had irresistible charms, old ties were very strong. 

Although there may have been at the time little conscious 
thought of the significance of the occasion, I believe that Alum¬ 
ni in general will now agree that, regardless of Boston meet¬ 
ings, in spite of triennial gatherings at Meriden, there never 
can be within our time, other class reunions so rich in precious 
memories as those we held on the old hill when Kimball Union 
was a hundred years old. 




THE OLD HOME DAY EXERCISES 


Old Home Day was observed on June 25th, and was fit¬ 
tingly celebrated on the common in front of the stone church. 
Plainfield is one of the few towns of the state that has held 
fifteen consecutive Old Home Week celebrations, or every year 
since it was instituted by Governor Frank W. Rollins in 1899. 
That the program of 1913 was enjoyed was evidenced by the 
fact that one lady, who had attended nearly all the Old Home 
Week celebrations in Plainfield said that never before had she 
heard such an interesting program by so many noted speakers. 

In the absence of the president of the Old Home Week 
Association, J. Daniel Porter was asked to preside, and af¬ 
ter extending a hearty greeting to all visitors, introduced the 
speakers who took as their general theme “Education in the 
New Country Life”. 

Hon. Henry C. Morrison, State Superintendent of Educa¬ 
tion, spoke on the part the school plays in community life. 

Mr. William Chauncy Langdon, Master of the Pageant, 
told of the History of Pageants in America and the benefit to 
be expected from them. 

Dr. R. J. Sprague, of the Massachusetts Agricultural Col¬ 
lege, spoke on the decadence of rural New England population 
and the problem of immigration. 

Mr. Percy MacKaye, a noted author, who spends his 
summers in Plainfield, read an original poem, “School”, writ¬ 
ten for the occasion. 

Hon. Edwin G. Eastman ’69, Ex-Attorney General of New 
Hampshire for twenty years, told in an interesting way of his 



























The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 83 


experience as a farmer, and gave as the prime requisite for 
success “ hard work well directed”. 

Dr. Charles H. Richards ’54, gave interesting reminiscences 
of his youth in Meriden. 

Music was furnished by Williams’ Orchestra of Windsor, 
Vt. 


MR. MACKAYE’S POEM 

The poem “School” was read by the author, Mr. Percy MacKaye, 
at the Old Home Day Exercises on the Academy Campus, .Wednesday 
morning, June 25. It is printed here entire by permission of Mr. Mac¬ 
Kaye, owner of the copyright, and by courtesy of “The Forum”, in. 
which magazine it appeared, (October, 1913). 

This poem was selected by Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite of 
(( The Boston Transcript” as one of the forty poems worthy of “special 
1 distinction” in his “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913.” 

Speaking of Mr. MacKaye’s work, “The New York Independent’ 
said, editorially (November 8, 1913), as follows: “Mr. MacKaye has 
read several poems at public commemorations, and his felicity on such 
occasions bids fair to make him the unofficial laureate of our intellec¬ 
tual life. * * * * It is not too much to say that his faith in the dem¬ 
ocratic audience and his uncompromising pursuit of high ideals have 
been inspiration of thousands of lovers of art in the United States . 

SCHOOL 

Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe 
And squinted long at Eben, his lank son. 

The silence shrilled with crickets. Day was done, 

And, row on dusky row, 

Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright afterglow. 
Eben stood staring: ever, one by one, 

The tendril tops turned ashen as they flared. 

Still Eben stared. 





8 4 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


O, there is wonder on New Hampshire hills, 

Hoeing the warm, bright furrows of brown earth, 

And there is grandeur in the stone wall’s birth, 

And in the sweat that spills 

From rugged toil its sweetness; yet for wild young wills 
There is no dew of wonder, but stark dearth, 

In one old man who hoes his long bean rows, 

And only hoes. 

Old Hezekiah turned slow on his heel. 

He touched his son. Thro’ all the carking day 
There are so many littlish cares to weigh 
Large natures down, and steel 

The heart of understanding. “Son, how is’t ye feel? 

What are ye starin’ on—a gal?” A ray 
Flushed Eben from the fading afterglow: 

He dropped his hoe. 

He dropped his hoe, but sudden stooped again 
And raised it where it fell. Nothing he spoke, 

But bent his knee and—crack! the handle broke, 

Splintering. With glare of pain, 

He flung the pieces down, and stamped upon them; then— 
Like one who leaps out naked from his cloak— 

Ran. “Here, come back! Where are ye bound—you fool?” 
He cried—“To school!” 


II 

Now on the mountain morning laughed with light_ 

With light and all the future in her face, 

For there she looked on many a far-off place 
And wild adventurous sight, 





The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 85 


For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with might 
And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race, 

Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool— 

“To school!—To school!” 

Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail, 

Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots; 

Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots; 

Under his swallowtail 

Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail; 

Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes; 

Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs, 

To eye his tracks. 

Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by 
The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in. 

There stood the bench where he had often been 
Admonished flagrantly 

To drone his numbers: now to this he said good-bye 
For mightier lure of more romantic scene: 

Good-bye to childish rule and homely chore 
Forevermore! 

All day he hastened like the flying cloud 
Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb. 

With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce gum, 

And muttered half aloud 

Huge oracles. At last, where thro’ the pine-tops bowed 
The sun, it rose !f—His heart beat like a drum. 

There, there it rose—his tower of prophecy: 

The Academy! 




86 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


III 

They learn to live who learn to contemplate, 

For contemplation is the unconfined 
God who creates us. To the growing mind 
Freedom to think is fate, 

And all that age and after-knowledge augurate 
Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined: 

That dream to nourish with the skillful rule 
Of love—is school. 

Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, 

Stood bursting—like a ripe seed—into soul. 

All his life long he had watched the great hills roll 
Their shadows, tints and sheens 

By sun- and moonrise; yet the bane of hoeing beans, 
And round of joyless chores, his father’s toll, 

Blotted their beauty; nature was as naught: 

He had never thought. 

But now he climbed his boyhood’s castle tower 
And knocked. Ah, well then for his after-fate 
That one of nature’s masters opened the gate, 

Where like an April shower 

Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to power. 
Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate, 

And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink, 

He bowed to think. 

There also bowed with him to quaff— 

The snorting herd! And many a wholesome grip 
He had of rivalry and fellowship. 

Often the game was rough, 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 87 


But Eben tossed his horns and never balked the cuff; 

For still through play and task his Dream would slip— 

A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny 
To his degree. 

IV 

Once more old Hezekiah stayed his hoe 
To squint at Eben. Silent, Eben scanned 
A little roll of sheepskin in his hand, 

While, row on dusky row, 

Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-pale afterglow. 

The boy looked up: here was another land! 

Mountain and farm with mystic beauty flared 
Where Eben stared. 

Stooping, he lifted with a furtive smile 
Two splintered sticks and spliced them. Nevermore 
His spirit would go beastwise to his chore 
Blinded, for even while 

He stooped to the old task, sudden in the sunset’s pile 
His radiant Herdsman swung a fiery door, 

Thro’ which came forth with far-borne trumpetings 
Poets and kings, 

His fellow conquerors: there Virgil dreamed, 

There Caesar fought and won the barbarous tribes, 

There Darwin, pensive, bore the ignorant gibes, 

And One with thorns redeemed 

From malice the wild hearts of men: there surged and streamed 
With chemic fire the forges of old scribes 
Testing anew the crucibles of toil 

To save God’s soil. 




88 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


So Eben turned again to hoe his beans, 

But now, to ballads which his Herdsman sung, 

Henceforth he hoed the dream in with the dung, 

And for his ancient spleens 

Planting new joys, imagination found him means. 

At last old Hezekiah loosed his tongue: 

“Well, boy, this school—what has it learned ye to know?” 
He said: “To hoe.” 











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THE CENTENNIAL GIFTS; 

The One Hundredth milestone has been passed. The cele¬ 
bration of the Centennial of the Academy, to which we looked 
forward for so many years with such pleasant anticipations, 
exists now only in memory. The many months of planning, 
the searching of records, the gathering of materials for the 
Pageant, the selection of speakers and securing their promise 
to speak, the attempt to harmonize and unify all the various 
interests, the hurry of rehearsal and preparation as the lines be¬ 
gan to converge more narrowly on those days in June, the com¬ 
ing of the crowds such as Meriden had never seen before, the 
dust and the heat, those splendid addresses, the happy reunion 
of classmates and friends, the bringing to life in imagination 
and in pageantry of the experiences of the community and 
Academy for a century,—all these pass before our mind’s eye 
like the changing shapes formed by a rapidly revolving kaleido¬ 
scope. And now I am asked to state in a very few words the 
real significance of it all to the Academy and the community in 
which she is placed, and also to speak of the gifts that seem to 
center about this anniversary. 

First of all I want to say that we have our regrets, that 
there are things that now we would fain forget. Why was 
it that the water would not run at the Dexter Richards Hall 
when it ran the week before and the week after? Why was it 
that the sun beat down so mercilessly on Tuesday when on pre¬ 
vious days it had been so comfortable on the grandstand? Ah, 
well, forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit! Or we may com¬ 
fort ourselves by saying that to such things applies the law of 
the third and fourth generation and think of all the good things 


go 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


that shall be remembered for a thousand generations. And yet 
again, why was it that business men who had come to us so 
highly recommended, failed so signally? Was it not to empha¬ 
size the difference between service rendered for money and the 
service others were rendering merely because they loved to 
serve their Alma Mater, or the cause of education? Was not 
that one thing that Christ taught when He fed four thousand. 

In the second place permit me to speak of the gifts that 
have come to the school so recently that they may be grouped 
together and spoken of as Centennial gifts. They may well be 
spoken of in this way, because they express in a certain way the 
increased and increasing sense of loyalty and unity that found 
expression in so many definite ways during the days of celebra¬ 
tion. The closing years of the century have been marked by 
several gifts to the Academy of great intrinsic value and of 
even greater import as we contemplate their opportunity for 
usefulness in the century to come. 

We should include that splendid legacy from John F. Kil- 
ton, the Boston lawyer, intimate friend of Caleb Blodgett of the 
class of 1852, who first interested 'Mr. Kilton in the school, a 
gift which included his library of some two thousand well-se¬ 
lected volumes and over forty-seven thousand dollars, the in¬ 
come of which is to be used to aid worthy boys and girls in gain¬ 
ing an education at Meriden. 

Bryant Hall, the gift before his death of John D. Bryant, 
Esq., of Boston, is proving a most valuable asset to the school 
as it takes on new life and vigor. Mr. Bryant was the son of 
John Bryant, who built and for many years conducted business 
in what many generations of students have known as “The 
Block”. He has long been counted among the warmest friends 
of the Academy and the community, and as one of their great¬ 
est benefactors. By his will, Mr. Bryant leaves to the Academy 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


9 i 


a tract of land in the village of Meriden, including the small 
pond, known as “Bryant’s Pond”, with a fund of five thousand 
dollars, the income of which is to be used to care for the prop¬ 
erty. He also establishes a fund of fifteen thousand dollars, 
the income of which is to be used in the care of Bryant Hall and 
whenever there is a surplus, for the care of other buildings. 

We rejoice in that pledge of enduring loyalty, the estab¬ 
lishment of the “Duncan Kimball Union Academy Salary 
Fund” of six thousand dollars, the gift of members of the Dun¬ 
can family. As was pointed out by some speaker in June, the 
Duncan family has maintained vital connection with the life of 
the Academy during nearly seventy years of its history through 
Samuel B. Duncan and John T. Duncan, a connection which is 
now being maintained by the recent election to the Board of 
Trustees of Harry L. Duncan, Esq., of New York City. 

The list of donors to the “Centennial fund” includes the 
names of over two hundred friends and alumni, who have given 
amounts ranging from one dollar to five hundred dollars, each 
attesting the love and loyalty of the giver. 

The two gifts which add to our material equipment, the 
farm and the gymnasium, will prove of very great and far- 
reaching importance in the life of the Academy. The gym¬ 
nasium is the gift of Henry Mann Silver, M.D., of the class of 
1867, a memorial to his brother, Charles Lewis Silver, of the 
class of 1865, and will be known as the Charles Lewis Silver 
Memorial Gymnasium. At the time this is being written, the 
building is rapidly nearing completion. It is constructed of 
brick, about eighty feet long and forty-five feet wide, has am¬ 
ple basement room for coal, boilers, locker rooms, and bowl¬ 
ing alley, is steam heated and is lighted by electricity. The 
floor will be used not only for gymnasium purposes, but with 
its large, open fireplace, gallery, and stage, will serve admira- 




92 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


bly for lectures, theatricals, and social gatherings. Dr. Silver 
in providing the building and its entire equipment is perform¬ 
ing a great and definite service for the Academy for which 
many generations of students will have reason to thank him. 

The farm is the gift of Alfred S. Hall, Esq., of the class of 
1869, since 1898 an honored member of the Board of Trustees, 
warm friend of disinterested service everywhere and a friend 
to whom the Academy is indebted for many good things. The 
farm is given as a memorial to his son as is most fittingly set 
forth on a bronze tablet placed on a bowlder on the hill just 
back of the Pageant grounds, a cut of which accompanies this 
article. The farm we intend shall perform a three-fold pur¬ 
pose: In the first place, it is to serve as a laboratory for those 
courses in elementary agriculture and science, which the Acad¬ 
emy is instituting primarily for the benefit of the community 
and its children. Secondly, it is to provide work for those boys 
who must aid themselves during the years of their secondary 
education. And finally, it will give the Academy a place to 
raise its own milk, eggs, vegetables, etc., for its boarding de¬ 
partment. In this three-fold purpose may be found the more 
or less complete cycle, in which the boy is trained to do a defi¬ 
nite task well, trained to so plant and cultivate and harvest, 
that the harvest may be so great that he may have the oppor¬ 
tunity to obtain an even better training or education, or give 
such to his children. But with this definite thought in mind, 
as far as the Academy can instill it, that it is not the calling 
that makes the man, but the essential manhood of the man that 
ennobles and dignifies any honest work. As the farm and its 
management is developed along these lines it can be made a 
very vital factor in the life of an ever-widening community. 

And now as to the underlying significance of the celebra¬ 
tion. What aside from material wealth was added to the heri- 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


93 


tage of the second century of the Academy? I answer without 
hesitation that results were accomplished, far reaching in their 
scope, the import of which no man can measure. They may 
perhaps be summed up in one phrase—the feeling of mutual re¬ 
spect and therefore of mutual responsibility, or, perhaps better, 
unity and responsibility. 

This union of forces, this forgetfulness of self for the gen¬ 
eral good, was what made possible the production of the Pag¬ 
eant and general celebration. It possessed the student body. A 
boy was asked to paint some road signs for the Pageant during 
the last few days, when we were all working almost without 
cessation. I retired at two o’clock and he was still hard at 
work. I began again at four o’clock and he was still at his 
task. It was the spirit of the community. Farmers left their 
fields that they might help. One man hired an extra helper at 
two dollars per day for many days that he might give his time 
to helping on the Pageant, and in doing so quite un¬ 
consciously caused to live again the spirit of Daniel 
Kimball, whose part he took in the Pageant. It was, 
too, the spirit of the whole body of the alumni. It 
found expression in the good fellowship of the week, the re¬ 
newal of the pleasant ties of student days, the discovery that old 
wounds no longer existed, in the sense of pride in the past and 
ambition for the future, in the welcome that the very hills of 
beautiful Meriden seemed to extend to the children returning 
to their Alma Mater. 

What man of us could behold the unfolding of the expe¬ 
riences and the work of a century as pictured in the Pageant 
and not find in his heart a feeling of gratitude that he was a 
part of that great progress, as the generations marched before 
him singing the “Song of the Generation 




94 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


“Come from all the ages! Swell the joyous throng! 

Start the echoes ringing with the burden of your song! 

Greet the dawning future with paeons of the strong! 

“Hail the dauntless settler, mighty to endure! 

Hail the sacrifices war and death found pure! 

Hail the struggle upward of the toiler and the poor! 

“Long as hills re-echo to hopeful heart and hand, 

Long as grain shall ripen or towering mountain stand, 

Shall the song of joy arise o’er all the toiling land!” 

What man of us could listen to that splendid address by 
Dr. Richards, reproduced in this volume, and not exclaim—“I 
\vas—I am a part of that noble institution!” 

Then just emerging, and not yet fully recognized, comes 
the sense of responsibility, resulting from and underlying that 
splendid sense of unity of which the Centennial was so signifi¬ 
cant. The Academy certainly feels a deeper feeling of respon¬ 
sibility for the welfare of the community, and I feel equally 
sure that the community desires to show itself helpful in the 
work of the Academy and to promote her interests. The re¬ 
sponsibility resting upon us, her children, to work along those 
lines of truth and honor for which she has stood during all 
these hundred years so consistently, is made all the more real 
and vital by the vision we have had of the greatness of our 
Alma Mater, the magnitude of the work her children have ac¬ 
complished, and the opportunity for a greater work in the days 
yet to be. 

Because of the Centennial and because of the Pageant, the 
children of Kimball Union have learned that they are all work¬ 
ing together for a great cause, and that for its accomplishment 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


95 


a certain duty and responsibility rests on each one for the wel¬ 
fare and fair name of the “school on the hill”. 

Thus Kimball Union Academy is facing the rising, not the 
setting sun. The light, that some have thought an afterglow, is 
the light of the coming day, in which the Academy, with arms 
strengthened and faith quickened, shall go forth to do still a 
noble work for men and for God. 


Charles Alden Tracy 




LIST OF ALUMNI PRESENT AT THE 
CENTENNIAL 


1840—Miss Mary R. D. Frost. 

1849—Robert K. Dow (non-grad.). 

1851— Henry M. Kimball. 

1852— Mrs. Sarah Bragg Littlefield, Mrs. Hattie Ladd Roberts, 
Dr. William W. Waterman. 

1853— Mrs. Mary Cutler Wood, Mrs. Lucy Wellman Wyman 
(non-grad.) 

1854— Mrs. Emily Leavitt Huggins, Rev. Charles H. Rich¬ 
ards, D.D. 

1855— Mrs. Kate Sawyer Kimball. 

1856— Rev. Charles C. Carpenter, D.D., William H. Child, Mrs. 
Lucy Hardy Cummings, George O. Little, Mrs. Anna 
French Tenney. 

1858— Mrs. Emily Barrows Cook, Mrs. Abbie Vining Duncan, 
William E. Johnson, William H. Sisson (non-grad.). 

1859— Mrs. Louisa Parker Frary, Charles P. Hall, Dr. Alfred 
O. Hitchcock, Mrs. Marion Powers Palmer, Mrs. Caro¬ 
line Powers Wellman, Mrs. Abbie Richards Woodbury. 

1861— Alvah B. Chellis, Mrs. Marion Westgate Eastman, Capt. 
Horace French, Miss Mary Sleeper. 

1862— Edwin Flanders, Mrs. Tamson Barrows Monroe, Mrs. 
Caroline Gleason Rossiter, George P. Rossiter. 


The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


97 


1863— Nathan Cushing, Lucien B. Downing, Rev. Charles H. 
Merrill, William F. Thayer (non-grad.). 

1864— Herbert E. Adams, Mrs. Louise Barron Rawson. 

1865— Prof. George J. Cummings, Miss Mary L. Chellis, Sid¬ 
ney H. Hardy, J. Edward Hall, Mrs. Lizzie Stone Stick- 
ney. 

1866— Mrs. Hattie Rossiter Chellis (non-grad.), Mrs. Emma 
Davis Willis. 

1867— Prof. Samuel W. Cole, Miss Mary E. Duncan, Dr. 
Henry M. Silver, George H. Woodbury, Mrs. Hattie 
Strobridge Wyman (non-grad.). 

1868— Henry P. McClay, John F. Tilton, Frederick H. Wales. 

1869_E. Wellman Barnard, Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., 

Edwin G. Eastman, Esq., Willis A. Farnsworth, George 
P. Hadley, Alfred S. Hall, Esq., Miss Alice P. Goodwin, 
Dr. Leonard F. Jarvis, Mrs. Katherine Duncan Paine, 
Mrs. Sarah Barton Woodbury (non-grad.). 

1870— Miss Etta E. Booth, Mrs. Ella Davis Richardson, Dr. 
William R. White. 

1871— Carl A. Allen, Fred W. Blanchard, Mrs. Florence Hall 
Davis, Mrs. Katherine Rossiter Smith (non-grad.). 

1872— Mrs. Emma Murry Blanchard, Mrs. Martha Day Hardy, 
Milton A. Hicks (non-grad.), Samuel Merrill (non¬ 
grad.), Mrs. Margaret Choate Nash, Mrs. Vienna Dodge 

Pearson. 

1873— Herbert Deming (non-grad.), F. DeForest Baker (non¬ 
grad.). 




98 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


1 87A —Andrew B. Baker (non-grad.), Rev. Tilton C. H. Bou¬ 
ton, Alfred P. Sawyer, Esq. 

1875— Mrs. Helen Clough Barton, Mrs. Melliecent M. Miller, 
Mrs. Ida Haywood Slate. 

1876— Mrs. Ella Welmarth Barton, Maj. E. H. Catlin, U. S. A., 
Mrs. Emma Marsh Chase, Miss Martha M. Chellis, Miss 
Mary A. Freeman, Mrs. Louise Chase Heritage, Mrs. 
Sarah Howe Noyes. 

1877— Myron W. Adams, Mrs. Nellie Frost Andrews. 

1878— Charles M. Catlin, Miss Carrie L. Lowe, Fred B. Rich¬ 
ardson, Prof. George Winch. 

1879— Miss Abbie S. Chellis, Miss Flora A. Cole (non-grad.), 
William R. Conant, Mrs. Belle Chellis Doremus, John 
McCrillis, Isaac C. Stone, Rev. William Slade, Mrs. 
Nellie Everest Walrath. 

1880— Mrs. Lucy Baldwin Catlin, Frank O. Chellis, Fayette F. 
Downing, Mrs. Clara Daniels Gardner. 

1881— Mrs. Julia Whitaker Burr, Mrs. Carrie Brown Coolidge, 
Mrs. Hattie Hill Elliott, Miss Martha E. Hurlbutt, Miss 
Mary E. Richardson, Herbert E. Ward, Mrs. Carrie 
Deming Whitmore, Rev. John E. Wildey. 

1882— Mrs. Effie Rawson Hubbard, Mrs. Ella Palmer Hurl- 
butt, Leander N. Sawyer, Mrs. Flora Brown Smith, 
Mrs. Alice Colby Wildey. 

1883— Dr. Abram W. Mitchell. 

18 84 — Mrs. Minnie Bean Cann (non-grad.), Miss Flora C. 
Clough, Edgar W. Davis, Mrs. Lizzie Chadbourne Har¬ 
low, Rev. Truman O. Harlow, Alpheus A. Hurlbutt, 
Mrs. Mary Hurlbutt Tallant, George G. Waite. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


99 


1885— Edmund B. Hunt, Mrs. Maude Soule Hunt, Mrs. Maim 
Chandler Hoffman, Miss Chloe S. Miller, Miss Emily N. 
Tracy, Miss Nettie G. Williams. 

1886— Robert A. Austin (non-grad.), Ira W. Haywood (non¬ 
grad.). 

1887— Mrs. Ada Wellman Morgan, Henry C. Cushing, Charles 
S. Lear (non-grad.), Mrs. May Cushing Shatswell, 
Frank B. Tracy (non-grad.), Elmer E. Wheeler (non¬ 
grad.). 

1888— George D. Austin, Hon. Jesse M. Barton, Rev. Jason G. 
Miller, Miss Dora T. Penniman, Mrs. Rose Miller Von- 
Tobel, Earl Westgate (non-grad.). 

1889— Frank J. Chadbourne, Miss Lydia S. Penniman. 

1890— Rufus B. Barton, Dr. Fred P. Clagett, Robert R. Penni¬ 
man. 

1892— Mrs. Jesse Sanborn Cutts (non-grad.), Mrs. Gertrude 
Veasey Miller, Henry S. Richardson, Esq., Mrs. Della 
Davis Sawyer, Mrs. Elouise Barden Wheeler. 

1893— Miss Bertha E. Bardin, Miss Blanche A. Bardin (non¬ 
grad.), John F. Cann (non-grad.), Miss Frances E. 
Daley, Rev. Maurice J. Duncklee, Mrs. Esther Sanborn 
Mason (non-grad.), Mrs. Ida Child Sibley, Miss Caro¬ 
line S. Thompson, Miss Mabel J. Thompson, Prin. 
Charles Alden Tracy, Rev. Albert P. Watson. 

1894— Mrs. Ellen Tracy Bailey (non-grad.), Harold W. Chel- 
lis, Irving J. French, Mrs. Daisy Jacobs Fuller, Mrs. 
Winnifred Lane Goss, L. Chandler Mason (non-grad.) ; 
Mrs. Annie Currier Moody, Mrs. Carrie Fenn Nutting, 
Thomas Penniman (non-grad.), Mrs. Valina Darling 
Richardson, Mrs. Ethel Carley Smith. 




ioo The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


1895— Charles E. Adams, Charles E. Bittinger, Mrs. Blanche 
Coburn Bogardus, Mrs. Lota Clancy Curtis, Miss Ma- 
rinda P. Davis, Miss Carrie F. Davis (non-grad.), 
Charles T. Ford, Arthur B. Kelley, Adna David Storrs. 

1896— Mrs. Blanche Morse Barton, Arthur P. Fairfield, Ever¬ 
ett W. Goodhue, Frank M. Howe, Mrs. Laura Dell Ran- 
ney, Edward P. Storrs, Jr., Miss Mary D. Wyman (non¬ 
grad.). 

1897— Miss Sara Corning, Mrs. Leona Barney Trombley (non¬ 
grad.), Miss Nellie L. Wyman. 

1898— Mrs. Nellie P. Blanchard, J. Frank Drake, Mrs. Amelia 
Griffith Fairfield, Miss Charlotte M. Judd, Dr. Homer 
Z. Leach, Miss Bertha M. Markham, Carl A. Parker, 
Mrs. Lucy Fuller Richardson. 

1899»—Mrs. Mary Westgate Chellis, Mrs. Miriam Monroe Duf- 
fill, Mrs. Blanche Hough Haase, Mrs. Allice Collins 
Huntington, Mrs. Florence McKee Moore (non-grad.), 
Silas C. Newell, Rev. Elbridge C. Torrey, Mrs. Etta 
Hoisington Weaver. 

1900— Mrs. Laura Morgan Coleman, Miss Blanche L. Daniels, 
Miss Fannie F. Davis, George H. Hersam, Esq., Albert 
M. Morton, Mrs. Eva Foulk Pfeiffer, Rollin H. Ranney, 
Miss Jennie Swackhamer, Mrs. Anna Coutant Torrey, 
Chester B. Turner. 

1901— Miss Julia V. Cummings, J. Ralph Pierce, Harry B. 
Preston, John R. Prince, Marion C. Purington, Miss 
Alice P. Thompson, Miss M. Blanche Townsend. 



The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


ioi 


1902— Joseph Boardman, Jr., Converse A. Chellis, Jason O. 
Cook, Miss Lucy L. Eastman, Rev. Edwin R. Gordon, 
Mrs. Bernice Barton Mark, Robert Olds (non-grad.), 
Miss Lora M. Pillsbury (non-grad), Miss Mary E. 
Scales, Miss Ethel R. Tucker, Mrs. Bessie Downing 
Ward, William Colby Wildey. 

1903— Mrs. Mabel Ruggles Cobb, Willard H. Cummings, Miss 
Bernice E. Jordan, Miss Mary E. Jordon, Miss Annie 
M. Langill, Mrs. Martha Morgan Parker (non-grad), 
Miss Laura E. Prince, Chauncey W. Smith, Dr. Harry 
C. Storrs, Mrs. Julia Colby Storrs, Miss Bessie S. West- 
gate. 

1904— Miss Lucretia L. Burbank, Miss Mary F. Cox, Mrs. 
Susie Freeman Jenney, Walter E. Goodnow, Charles E 
Pierce, S. Lee Ruggles. 

1905— Henry I. Burbank (non-grad.), G. Verne Claflin (non¬ 
grad.), Miss Madge M. Daniels, Clyde H. Deming, 
Claude H. Deming, Mrs. Ethel Page Duncklee, Miss 
Susan G. Stearns, Harold F. Tucker (non-grad.), Her¬ 
bert E. Warren, Mrs. Annie Brown Wilcox. 

1906— Charles A. Bacon, Jr., Emily Holton Bacon (non-grad.), 
Mrs. Emma A. Bailly, Mrs. Lizzie Whitaker Baptista, 
Leroy H. Harlow, William H. Jenney, Mrs. Bernice Fitch 
Livingstone, Hubert S. Pierce, Leon F. Miller, Miss 
Marion J. Stowe (non-grad.). 

1907_Arthur N. Ball (non-grad.), James H. English, Percy 

M. Goodell (non-grad.), Edward B. Judd, Miss Ruth 
Lewin, J. Daniel Porter, Stanley M. Rockwood, Wal¬ 
ter E. Smith (non-grad). 




io2 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


1908— Earle E. Benjamin, Miss Mabel K. Downing, Miss Car¬ 
oline Griffin, Mrs. Marion Hathaway Porter. 

1909— Miss Inez A. Clark, Harold A. Fitch, Mrs. Harriot Co¬ 
burn Hopkins, Miss May E. Jenney, Ray F. Jenney, 
Miss Marion H. Lewis, Miss Roxie L. Page, Miss Flor¬ 
ence Raymond, Deane F. Ruggles, William B. True, 
Fred N. Smith (non-grad.), Mathew H. Watson, Henry 

B. Weymouth. 

1910— William D. Burr, Miss Marion S. Cole, Miss Charlotte 
A. T. Davies, Dorothy L. Cuthbert, James L. Cuthbert, 
James B. Hawley, Miss A. Rena Howard, George E. 
Hunt, Miss Mildred L. Hunt, Miss Charlotte F. B. New¬ 
ton, Kenneth T. Penniman, Mrs. Lena Rogers Reed, 
Miss Lucy F. Ruggles, Leonard Watson, Mrs. Carrie 
Rogers Westgate. 

1911— Miss Carrie C. Burr, Miss Phebe M. Cook, Miss Ada M. 
Hill, Miss Mildred B. Kimball, Julius S. Mason, Ralph 

C. Mayo, Miss E. Kathleen Parmlee, Fred H. Perham, 
Edward M. Porter (non-grad.), Herbert J. Rennie, Miss 
Una A. Rice, Robert A. Wilder. 

1912— Miss Ruth E. Aiken, Miss Ethel R. Barton, Miss Winnie 
M. Blake, Jesse B. Deming (non-grad.), Frank W. Fitch, 
Miss Roxie A. Guillow, Leigh W. Hunt (non-grad.), 
Miss Evalyn K. Lufkin, Miss Isabella L. Lufkin, Miss 
Kathleen A. MacLennan (non-grad.), Carl P. Merry- 
man, Harold L. Ruggles, Miss Harriet A. Rogers, Miss 
Maud B. Wheeler, Elwin W. Witherill. 




NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF THE CENTENNIAL 

MERIDEN HOLDS BIG PAGEANT 

Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Founding of Kim¬ 
ball Union Academy. Attended by People from 
Over the State 

(From The Manchester Union of June 25, 1913.) 

The Pageant of Meriden, which tells in dramatic form the 
anniversary of the town and Academy which is today celebrat¬ 
ing its 100th anniversary, was given this afternoon, and attended 
by a large number of people from all parts of the country. 
Upon a hillside, in a beautiful grove of white pines, located on 
a large farm, a recent gift to the Academy by Alfred S. Hall of 
Boston, the affair was held. Educators, writers, artists, and stu¬ 
dents took an active part, and the Old Home Week association 
of the town of Plainfield also co-operated in making the affair 
a success. 

The summer capital at Cornish is only a short distance 
away, and many of the prominent artists, writers, and sculptors, 
who pass the summer in this vicinity assisted in the event. A 
poem was written by Percy MacKaye of New York, who has a 
beautiful summer home near here, and Ernest Harold Baynes, 
another prominent resident, took an active part in the interlude 
of the birds. 

The pageant which emphasized particularly the function of 
a secondary school in the new country life, contained ten epi¬ 
sodes and five interludes. Its final scene showed the Academy 


io4 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


and town of 1920, when the various lines of activity now being 
set on foot are firmly established, and suggested the boys from 
its agricultural and manual courses as successful farmers and 
its girls as efficient home makers. The episodes followed the 
united fortunes of town and school down the one hundred years 
through prosperity and vicissitudes to the finale, which was a 
dramatized realization of the mission that the town and Acad¬ 
emy hold before them. 

In the introduction, “The Vision of Education”, Mr. and 
Mrs. A. B. Cutts, Mr. and Mrs. L. C. Mason, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Walter Stearns, portrayed the part of the pioneers. In the first 
episode, “The Settling of Meriden”, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Chel- 
lis took the part of the first settlers, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin 
Kimball, who came to Meriden in 1769, and brought with them 
their son, Daniel Kimball (Master Raymond E. Claflin). It 
was he who gave the nucleus of the principal fund of the school 
and determined the location and the final name of the institu¬ 
tion. 

Others taking principal parts in the affair were: John F. 
Cann, P. C. Jordan, Clarence Bean, Robert Penniman, Mrs. 
N. R. Andrews, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Curtis, Mr. and Mrs. 
A. B. Chellis, J. Daniel Porter, Edwin Porter, Daniel C. West- 
gate, O. A. Milner, Marion Westgate, Harriet Rogers, Mrs. 
Amelia Bean, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Peterson, Mr. and Mrs. G. C. 
Barton, Mrs. E. H. Chellis, Walter Walker, Alpheus Hurlbutt, 
Winter Eastman, C. H. Sears, Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Howe, Miss 
Mary Freeman, Mrs. Lucy Eastman, Mrs. Frank French, Mr. 
and Mrs. C. A. Tracy, and William Slade. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 105 


THE PAGEANT OF MERIDEN 

(The following article, written by W. R. Nelson, was 
printed in the Newport, N. H., Champion, and reprinted in the 
Meriden Weekly Enterprise of July 24, 1913.) 

By roads bordered with the gold of buttercups and bounded 
only by the seas, came hosts of returning pilgrims. The grand¬ 
stand, seating 2,000, was built at the top of a hill facing a little 
opening in the pines, and beyond the pines, Meriden hill and the 
blue bulk of Mt. Ascutney. Out of the little pines on either 
side came whirling sprites and elves, came Puritan men and 
women, came settlers with their indomitable women-folk, and 
trappers, and men of God with reverent voice and manner; 
while through it all ran specially composed and orchestrated 
music. 

How our hearts went out to the boy, Daniel, and his 
mother; to the iron-willed men, who out of acrimonious de¬ 
bate, at length achieved the founding of a church, though only 
after much prayer and the singing of a quaint old hymn. 

How suggestive the scene of activity; the ringing anvil, the 
echoing axe, the ox-team and the plowman, the women weaving 
and spinning, upon which fanciful Idleness intruded, and which 
by subtle ways she changed, until all were idle, all but the parson, 
who by admonition and the Word, repulsed the intruder! 

And then the coming of the beautiful new flag that was to 
be presented to academy boys who fought for union and free¬ 
dom! How can the appeal and pathos of that scene be de¬ 
scribed ? Snatches of war-time music, the soldier striding away 
up the hill, the young mother, sorrowing, and yet lifted up by 
the greatness of her sacrifice, waiting, waiting! 

Very real then became the struggle, very high surged our 
desires to commit our best to the nation’s need. Again she ap¬ 
peared in the beautiful closing scene, where the boy Daniel and 





io6 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


his mother fed the altar fire that education kindled. One by 
one, our forefathers entered the glade, each feeding the fire, 
and with them the bereaved young mother, still sorrowing and 
waiting. Yet joy comes, for her soldier hurries down the hill 
at last and clasps her in his arms. The beautiful flag comes, 
too. Rise, grand-stand, rise to a man and cheer! Is your 
patriotism so dead a thing, or are your throats husky with 
choking tears? 

The end of the pageant could not be, of course, without a 
sight of boys and girls. Indeed, a whole coachful of young 
ladies alighted from the rocking old stage coach that came, 
along with so many other wonders, from out the pines. Little 
wonder that the boy students were in such a hurry to carry 
baggage for those delightful girls. 

Meriden, the wilderness, we saw, and Meriden at the height 
of its academic prosperity. We witnessed, too, its wane along 
with farm prosperity. Then, beautiful interlude, Meriden, the 
bird village, was placed before our eyes. While the orchestra 
played softly, with trills and silvery calls, Music came listening, 
and little children dressed as birds, blue-birds, yellow-birds, and 
robins, and the whole feathery tribe, scudded back and forth 
among the trees. Finally, Mr. Baynes appeared in khaki and a 
tam-o-shanter, bearing a model bird-restaurant, of which there 
are already a few about the village. 

The “Return to the Soil”, largely prophetic, seems yet 
of sure fulfillment. Plainfield’s Old Home Day, Wednesday 
forenoon, gave remarkable support to the spirit of the pageant. 
No one who heard the inspiring addresses there given could fail 
to be enthused and stirred with the importance of our New 
Hampshire farm life. The keynote was, better men and women, 
better farms, a better nation; Anglo-Saxons on the soil can hold 
the land for all time. 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 107 


Delightful, harmonic, entrancing, all this the pageant was. 
Complete, it will be remembered with joy and a strengthening 
of purpose. 


THE MERIDEN PAGEANT 

(From The Congregationalist and Christian World, of July 

17, 1913.) 

The Pageant of Meriden, which was the masterpiece of the 
centennial anniversay of Kimball Union Academy, had an ideal 
place for its performance on the highest point of the large farm 
lately given by an old graduate, Mr. Alfred S. Hall of Boston, 
as an agricultural annex to the school. From this lofty hilltop 
there was a wondrous outlook, taking in the athletic fields and 
the school village, and stretching over the adjoining Cornish, 
with its summer homes of President Wilson, of artists and poets 
and publicists and literati, till beyond the Connecticut grand 
old Ascutney estopped the view. The “Master of the Pageant , 
William Chauncy Langdon, of New York City, is a master, 
indeed, who took up the study of the modern pageant under the 
Russell Sage Foundation, and has achieved great success in 
rendering similar historical exhibitions. On this sightly spot 
and under his guidance, assisted by a large local committee, 
hundreds of actors—teachers and students of the school, men, 
women, and children of the town—showed on two successive 
days to over two thousand spectators the various episodes in 
the history of the town and school. The sturdy Christian pio¬ 
neers built their camp, though resisted by “Nature Spirits”, who 
emerge from the grove of pine and dance around them. A 
church is established, and its ancient bell rang out anon across 
the valley, always at just the right time!—the Academy is 





io8 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


founded; the girls at length are admitted as pupils (so that it is 
a Union Academy) ; touching incidents of war-time were intro¬ 
duced; there is an Interlude of the Birds, with Ernest Harold 
Baynes, the eminent naturalist from Corbin Park, close by, as 
chief actor, but with little children flitting back and forth 
among the pines to personify sparrows and robins and gros¬ 
beaks and tanagers; nymphs of the forest and old time char¬ 
acters of town and school so artfully intermingled as to bring 
out with wonderful effect the century-long history of this 
grandly useful Christian school, in a quiet town in the New 
Hampshire hill-country. 





APPENDIX 


THE CHARTER 


STATE OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. 

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED 
AND THIRTEEN. 

AN ACT to Incorporate the Trustees of the Union Academy. 

Whereas Charles Marsh, Ebenezer Adams, and Zeph- 
aniah Swift Moore have represented, that it is in contempla¬ 
tion to establish, at Plainfield in this State, a Seminary designed 
to assist in the education of poor and pious young men for the 
gospel ministry; and also to make provision for the education of 
such others, as may be admitted upon terms to pay a reasonable 
sum for their tuition; and that a considerable sum has been con¬ 
tributed towards the establishment and support of such an insti¬ 
tution; and that Charles Marsh, of Woodstock , Rev. Asa Bur¬ 
ton, d. d., of Thetford, Ebenezer Adams, Esq., of Hanover, 
Rev. Bancroft Fowler, of Windsor, Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, 
of Hanover, Rev. David Sutherland, of Bath, Rev. Stephen Ful¬ 
ler, of Vershire, Rev. Abijah Wines, of Newport, Benj. J. Gil¬ 
bert, Esq., of Hanover, and Deacon Joseph Ford, of Piermont, 
have been elected Trustees thereof, and have requested, that an 
act may be passed, authorizing the establishment of said Semina¬ 
ry in said Plainfield; and that the said Marsh, Burton, Adams, 
Fowler, Moore, Sutherland, Fuller, Wines, Gilbert, and Ford, 




no The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


and others, and their successors, may be created a body corpo¬ 
rate and politic by the name of the Trustees of the Union Acad¬ 
emy, and be vested with all such powers and privileges, as may 
be necessary to the full accomplishment of the objects aforesaid; 
and as the general prevalence of morality and religion is of the 
highest interest to every people; and as it is among the first du¬ 
ties of the legislature to cherish and promote them.— Therefore, 
Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre¬ 
sentatives in General Court convened, That there may be es¬ 
tablished at such place within the town of Plainfield, in the Coun¬ 
ty of Cheshire in this State, as the Trustees hereinafter named 
shall judge to be most suitable, a Seminary for the purpose of as¬ 
sisting in the education of poor and pious young men for the gos¬ 
pel ministry, and such others of sufficient ability, who may be ad¬ 
mitted by the Trustees, subject to pay for their tuition, to be de¬ 
nominated the Union Academy, in which may be taught all 
branches of education necessary for preparing youth for entering 
any of the three lower classes in the Colleges in the United 
States. 

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Union Acade¬ 
my shall be under the care, superintendence, and control of a 
board of Trustees, consisting of thirteen members, including the 
principal instructor of said Academy, who shall always be, ex- 
officio, one of said board, seven of whom shall be a quorum to 
do business; and not less than one half, nor more than two thirds 
of said board of Trustees, shall be ordained ministers of the gos¬ 
pel. 

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That Charles Marsh, 
Esq., of Woodstock, in the State of Vermont, Rev. Asa Burton, 
d. d., of Thetford in said State of Vermont, Ebenezer Adams, 
Esq., of Hanover in this State, Rev. Bancroft Fowler, of Wind¬ 
sor in said State of Vermont, Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, of 
Hanover aforesaid, Rev. David Sutherland, of Bath in this State, 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy hi 


Rev. Stephen Fuller of Vershire in said State of Vermont, Rev. 
Abijah Wines, of Newport in this State, Daniel Kimball, Esq., 
of Plainfield aforesaid, Ben. J. Gilbert, Esq., of Hanover afore¬ 
said, and Deacon Joseph Ford, of Piermont in this State, shall 
be, and they are hereby appointed members of said board of 
Trustees. 

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the board of Trustees 
aforesaid and their successors shall be, and they hereby are made 
a body corporate and politic by the name of the Trustees of the 
Union Academy; and by that name shall be a corporation for¬ 
ever with power to have a common seal; to make contracts rela¬ 
tive to the objects of their institution; to sue and be sued; to 
establish by-laws and orders for the regulation of said Academy, 
and for the conduct and duties of the instructors, agents, and stu¬ 
dents thereof, and for the preservation and application of the 
funds, and for the sale of the property thereof; provided the 
same be not repugnant to the constitution and laws of this State; 
to take, hold, and possess any estate real or personal, by sub¬ 
scription, gift, grant, purchase, devise, or otherwise, sixty thou¬ 
sand dollars whereof shall be free from taxes; and the same to 
improve, lease, or exchange, or sell and convey, for the sole ben¬ 
efit of said Institution. 

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the Trustees and 
Instructors of the Union Academy shall be professors of the 
Christian religion, and shall each be a regular member of some 
Congregational or Presbyterian church. 

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That the said Trustees 
shall have power, at any regular meeting, to fill up any vacancy, 
which may have happened by the death, or resignation of a mem¬ 
ber of said board, or by other cause, by electing some other per¬ 
son, qualified as this act prescribes, to fill such vacancy. 

Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the said Trustees, 
shall have power to appoint, and they are hereby authorized 




112 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


and directed to appoint a President, and Vice President, to be 
chosen from the members of said board of Trustees, one principal 
instructor, and as many other instructors as may be necessary, a 
Treasurer and Secretary; and any other officers or agents, whose 
services in the concerns of said institution may be needed; and 
to remove any of the officers or agents aforesaid, or any member 
of the board of Trustees whenever in the opinion of a majority 
of all the Trustees, the interests of said institution shall require 
such removal. 

Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That the said board of 
Trustees shall determine the amount of compensation to be al¬ 
lowed to the instructors, Treasurer, and Secretary aforesaid, and 
to such other officers or agents as may be employed by them in 
the concerns of said institution; but the services and attendance 
of the board of Trustees, performed in that capacity, shall be per¬ 
formed gratis; provided, however, that their necessary expences 
may be defrayed out of the funds of the institution. 

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That students shall be 
admitted into said Academy on such conditions as said Trustees 
may prescribe, and said Trustees shall also prescribe the rate of 
tuition to be paid by all students, who, or whose parents are of 
sufficient ability to pay the same; and all sums, received for the 
tuition of such students, shall be paid into the Treasury in aid of 
the funds. 

Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That the Treasurer 
shall give bonds with sufficient security, to the satisfaction of the 
board of Trustees, for the faithful performance of the duties of 
his office. 

Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That all property, which 
shall be given to the use of said Academy, shall be faithfully ap¬ 
plied to the objects of said institution, either as a permanent or 
contingent fund, according to the direction of the donor, and in 
strict conformity with this act; and all donations to the perma- 




The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 113 


nent fund, whether in money, in real, or personal estate shall be 
disposed of, vested in funds, loaned or leased on ample security 
at the discretion of the board of Trustees, the income whereof to¬ 
gether with such sums as may be given for immediate expendi¬ 
ture, shall be expended in necessary accommodations for said in¬ 
stitution, and in fitting for College such pious young men in in¬ 
digent circumstances, as said Trustees may select; and in con¬ 
tributing in part or in the whole to the expence of completing the 
education of such, as are so fitted, at some College in the United 
States, and in aiding them afterwards, so far as may be neces¬ 
sary, in their professional studies. 

Sec. 12. And be it further enacted, That there shall be one 
stated annual meeting of the board of Trustees, to be holden at 
such time and place, as said Trustees shall establish; but the 
board of Trustees may provide for calling special meetings of the 
Trustees for special purposes, and all proceedings at special 
meetings, convened agreeably to the by-laws of the corporation, 
shall be valid. 

Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That the board of Trus¬ 
tees may, and they are hereby empowered, once to alter the 
name of the Union Academy by prefixing thereto the name of 
the principal donor. 

Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That, if at any time 
hereafter, the members of said board of Trustees should be re¬ 
duced to a number less than seven, a majority of the remaining 
members shall be a quorum for the purpose of filling up vacan¬ 
cies. 

Sec. 15. And be it further enacted, That those, who have 
subscribed towards erecting the buildings for said Academy, shall 
be at liberty to withold the payment of what they have subscri¬ 
bed; provided, nevertheless, that, if the payment of any sums so 
subscribed shall be withheld, the Trustees aforesaid may locate 
said Academy in any other town within this State. 




114 The Centennial at Kimball Union Academy 


Sec. 16. And be it further enacted, That Charles Marsh, 
Esq., or Ebenezer Adams, Esq., may call the first meeting of 
said board of Trustees to be holden at such time and place, as 
said Marsh or Adams may appoint, by giving notice thereof, a 
reasonable time previous to such meeting, to each of the Trustees 
aforesaid, and said Trustees shall, at said meeting, elect one per¬ 
son, qualified as this act prescribes, to be a member of said board 
of Trustees. 


STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

In the House of Representatives, June 10 th, 1813. 

The foregoing bill having had three several readings passed to 
be enacted. 

Sent up for concurrence, 

THO. W. THOMPSON, Speaker. 

In the Senate, June 1 \th, 1813. 

This Bill having been read a third time was enacted. 

OLIVER PEABODY, President. 

Approved, June 16th, 1813. 

J. T. GILMAN, Governor. 

A true Copy. 

Attest, SAMUEL SPARHAWK, Secretary. 





































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